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

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The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.
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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
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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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Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable. It has of itself no rights they are altogether duties.
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Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to bind me in all cases whatsoever to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?
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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.
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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.
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He who takes nature for his guide, is not easily beaten out of his argument
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The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.
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It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
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Public credit is suspicion asleep.
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That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
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But where, says some, is the King of America? I'll tell you. Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.
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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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The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
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He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
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When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
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Wrong cannot have a legal descendant.
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... in free countries the law ought to be King and there ought to be no other.
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Men should not petition for rights, but take them
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