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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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Is it because you are sunk in the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honor of your Creator, that you listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference?
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A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.
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If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up.
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Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care but there is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.
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The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
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To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
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I believe in one God, and no more and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of humans and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.
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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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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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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.
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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
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Compassion, the fairest associate of the heart.
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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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No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its being right and when he sees it is not so, the prejudice will be gone.
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For the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings more subtle — not more just.
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Thus commerce, though in itself a moral nullity, has had a considerable influence in tempering the human mind....he trades with the same countries ...(that he) would have gone to war with.
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Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind.
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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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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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Prejudice will fall in a combat with interest.
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