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I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered and the easier repaired when disordered.

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
Idea
Liable
Art
Draw
Nature
Principle
Form
Draws
Government
Easier
Ideas
Principles
Disordered
Thing
Simple
Repaired
Less
Overturn

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Men should not petition for rights, but take them
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There is something in meanness which excites a species of resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred.
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Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
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As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my purpose by any personal altercation and the man who cannot do this, is not fit for a public character.
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The creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the certainty of His existence and the immutability of His power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries.
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Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.
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That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
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When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
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A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
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A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose.
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For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.
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The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
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Of all the tyrannies that effect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity.
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[A]ll churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, are simply human inventions. They use fear to enslave us. They are a monopoly for power and profit.
Thomas Paine
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Government without a constitution, is a power without a right.
Thomas Paine
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The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world not destitute of arms, for all would be alike but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside ... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them ... the weak will become prey to the strong.
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The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax
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Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
Thomas Paine
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The case, however, is, that the Bible will not bear examination in any part of it, which it would do if it was the Word of God. Those who most believe it are those who know least about it, and priests always take care to keep the inconsistent and contradictory parts out of sight.
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Christianity is the strangest religion ever set up, for it committed a murder upon Jesus in order to redeem mankind from the sin of eating an apple.
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