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We repose an unwise confidence in any government, or in any men, when we invest them officially with too much, or an unnecessary quantity of, discretionary power.

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
Government
Unwise
Much
Repose
Men
Invest
Unnecessary
Quantity
Separation
Confidence
Discretionary
Power
Officially

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From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.
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The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
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It is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene.
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The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.
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Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
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...the Bible is such a book of lies and contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe or whether any.
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It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
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Therefore we say that a lying Spirit has been in the mouth of the writers of the books of the Bible.
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The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy.
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Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.
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Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches and tho' avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
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It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God.
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The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the original system of theology.
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All the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man or the unity of man, as being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions.
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From whence, then, could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependant on His protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our world, because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten an apple?
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Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King and there ought to be no other.
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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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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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I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel.
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The right of voting for representatives , is the primary right by which other rights are protected.
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