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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.

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
History
Detest
Part
Wickedness
Everything
Corrupt
Sincerely
Humankind
Served
Cruel
Religion
Brutalize

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Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
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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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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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...It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
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Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
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Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time.
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Time makes more converts than reason.
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Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God.
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To believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian faith at once little and ridiculous and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air.
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Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority perfect equality affords no temptation.
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The intimacy which is contracted in infancy, and friendship which is formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable.
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Ah, reader, put thy trust in thy creator, and thou wilt be safe but if thou trustest to the book called the scriptures thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable and falsehood.
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Every proprietor owes to the community a ground-rent for the land which he holds.
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There is something in meanness which excites a species of resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred.
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Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.
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Compassion, the fairest associate of the heart.
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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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Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches and tho' avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
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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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It is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments.
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