Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Power
Account
Accounts
Superabundance
Single
Uncontrolled
Becomes
Despotic
Principles
Monarch
Dangerous
Monarchs
Liberty
Legislature
Political
Execution

More quotes by Thomas Paine

Image
I die content, I die for the liberty of my country.
Thomas Paine
Image
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
Image
A man may write himself out of reputation when nobody else can do it.
Thomas Paine
Image
Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage than any victory with all its expence.
Thomas Paine
Image
An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
Thomas Paine
Image
The Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the eternal laws and obligations of morality are to the conscience. It should be unalterable by any human power.
Thomas Paine
Image
I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state up and help us lay your shoulders to the wheel better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake.
Thomas Paine
Image
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.
Thomas Paine
Image
Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
Thomas Paine
Image
The stupid texts of the Bible - from which, be the talents of the preacher what they may, only stupid sermons can be preached.
Thomas Paine
Image
We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.
Thomas Paine
Image
When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.
Thomas Paine
Image
Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad.
Thomas Paine
Image
The burden of the national debt consists not in its being so many millions, or so many hundred millions, but in the quantity of taxes collected every year to pay the interest. If this quantity continue the same, the burden of the national debt is the same to all intents and purposes, be the capital more or less.
Thomas Paine
Image
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.
Thomas Paine
Image
When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir.
Thomas Paine
Image
It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God.
Thomas Paine
Image
Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and flourish best together.
Thomas Paine
Image
But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?
Thomas Paine
Image
He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third.
Thomas Paine