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There is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.

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
Continent
Governed
Continents
Island
Islands
Absurd
Supposing
Something
Perpetually

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Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system. The foundation and superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks and ever will.
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It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
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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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Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
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A single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrolled rabidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to the principles of liberty as that of a despotic monarch.
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Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us.
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From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.
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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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Public credit is suspicion asleep.
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No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people.
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Government has no right to make itself a party in any debates respecting the principles or mode of forming or of changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who exercise the powers of government, that constitutions, and the governments issuing from them, are established.
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The art of publicity is a black art but it has come to stay, and every year adds to its potency.
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Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.
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It will be proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments have arisen, and on which they have been founded.
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Priests and conjurors are of the same trade.
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