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The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.

Thomas Paine

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Thomas Paine
Age: 72 †
Born: 1737
Born: January 29
Died: 1809
Died: June 8
Author
Entrepreneur
Journalist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Politician
Prosaist
Writer
Thetford
Norfolk
Rights
Voting
Pain
Slavery
Away
Election
Representatives
Another
Subject
Reduce
Government
Case
Protected
Take
Vote
Primaries
Right
Subjects
Primary
Men
Cases
Consists

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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
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Government is a necessary evil
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Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
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Every proprietor owes to the community a ground-rent for the land which he holds.
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If the present generation, or any other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right of the succeeding generation to be free: wrongs cannot have a legal descent.
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Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
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The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.
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From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms! Through the land let the sound of it flee Let the far and the near all unite, with a cheer, In defense of our Liberty Tree.
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It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
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And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man.
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Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.
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I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state up and help us lay your shoulders to the wheel better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake.
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The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing.
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Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it.
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In the progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life, we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but frequently neglect to gather up experiences as we go.
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The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale.
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Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to bind me in all cases whatsoever to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?
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We ought therefore to suspect that a great mass of information respecting the Bible, and the introduction of it into the world, has been suppressed by the united tyranny of Church and State, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which ought to be known.
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The Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the eternal laws and obligations of morality are to the conscience. It should be unalterable by any human power.
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