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

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Religion is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.
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The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and simple, and consists but of two points--his duty God, which every man must feel and, with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by.
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To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin.
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It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support.
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The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of the Old if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation.
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Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.
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The greatest characters the world has known, have rose on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy.
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Reputation is what men and women think of us character is what God and angels know of us.
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Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
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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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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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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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But where, says some, is the King of America? I'll tell you. Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.
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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
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It may perhaps be said that it signifies nothing to a man what is done to him after he is dead but it signifies much to the living it either tortures their feelings or hardens their hearts.
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Every proprietor owes to the community a ground-rent for the land which he holds.
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If anything had or could have a value equal to gold and silver, it would require no tender law and if it had not that value it ought not to have such a law and, therefore, all tender laws are tyrannical and unjust and calculated to support fraud and oppression.
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A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
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Moderation in temper is always a virtue but moderation in principle is always a vice.
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Each government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of government.
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