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Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.

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
Diminish
Commerce
Patriotism
Military
Spirit
Life
Diminishes
Defence

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Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange believe that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.
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It is not the nature of avarice to be satisfied with anything but money. Every passion that acts upon mankind has a peculiar mode of operation. Many of them are temporary and fluctuating they admit of cessation and variety. But avarice is a fixed, uniform passion.
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The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.
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What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.
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Prophesying is lying professionally.
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Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it.
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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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When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous.
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I fear not, I see not reason for fear. In the end we will be the victors. For though at times the flame of liberty may cease to shine, the ember will never expire.
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We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest truest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
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That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
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No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance.
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Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it.
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Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
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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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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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I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel.
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Compassion, the fairest associate of the heart.
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It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God.
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Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.
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