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Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

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
Influence
Rendered
Goes
Sufficiently
Either
Machinery
Whatever
Submit
Submits
Government
Opposites
Obeys
Reason
Easily
Bulk
Country
Ignorance
Dictated
Great
Mankind
Extensive

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I am sensible that he who means to do mankind a real service must set down with the determination of putting up, and bearing with all their faults, follies, prejudices and mistakes until he can convince them that he is right.
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Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
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For freemen like brothers agree With one spirit endured, they one friendship pursued, And their temple was Liberty Tree
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Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.
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Death is not the monarch for the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses a subject.
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Action and care will in time wear down the strongest frame, but guilt and melancholy are poisons of quick dispatch.
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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.
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Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.
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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.
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Moderation in temper is always a virtue but moderation in principle is always a vice.
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Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.
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Kill the king but spare the man.
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Human nature is not of itself vicious.
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The representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found.
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My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
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A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose.
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...the Bible is such a book of lies and contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe or whether any.
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The moral duty of man consists of imitatingthe moral goodness and beneficence of God,manifested in the creation, toward all His creatures.
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Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it.
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Every proprietor owes to the community a ground-rent for the land which he holds.
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