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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.
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
Single
Uncontrolled
Becomes
Despotic
Principles
Monarch
Dangerous
Monarchs
Liberty
Legislature
Political
Execution
Power
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Accounts
Superabundance
More quotes by Thomas Paine
His [Jesus'] historians, having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground.
Thomas Paine
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.
Thomas Paine
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.
Thomas Paine
War ought to be no man's wish.
Thomas Paine
Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.
Thomas Paine
Kill the king but spare the man.
Thomas Paine
It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God.
Thomas Paine
Wrong cannot have a legal descendant.
Thomas Paine
Titles are like a magicians wand which circumscribe human facility and prevent us from living the lives of man.
Thomas Paine
Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles he can only discover them.
Thomas Paine
Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad.
Thomas Paine
I disbelieve all holy men and holy books.
Thomas Paine
Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.
Thomas Paine
It is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene.
Thomas Paine
Men should not petition for rights, but take them
Thomas Paine
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
Thomas Paine
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.
Thomas Paine
Civilization, or that which is so called, has operated two ways to make one part of society more affluent and the other part more wretched than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.
Thomas Paine
The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale.
Thomas Paine
Time makes more converts than reason.
Thomas Paine
