Quote

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.

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
Steps
Separately
Class
Ridicule
Difficult
Sublime
Often
Nearly
Makes
Related
Ridiculous
Difficulty
Step

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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
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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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Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public characters.
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He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
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Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.
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Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and flourish best together.
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The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
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How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.
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We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
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The United States of America will sound as pompously in the world or in history as The Kingdom of Great Britain.
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Prejudice, like the spider, makes everywhere its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same. Prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind.
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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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