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Government is a necessary evil

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
Necessary
Evil
Government

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But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?
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When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it.
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Yet this is trash that the Church imposes upon the world as the Word of God this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the Holy Bible! This is the rubbish called Revealed Religion!
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Ignorance is of a peculiar nature once dispelled, it is impossible to reestablish it. It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge and though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant.
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Prejudice will fall in a combat with interest.
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There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is not to be found inany other system of religion. All other systems have something in them that either shock our reason, or are repugnant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in order to force himself to believe them.
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It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.
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Public credit is suspicion asleep.
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Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying
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War ought to be no man's wish.
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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.
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Men should not petition for rights, but take them
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The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the original system of theology.
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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.
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I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered and the easier repaired when disordered.
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Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it.
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Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.
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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.
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It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt
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All the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man or the unity of man, as being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions.
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