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The idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet-laureat.

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
Juries
Ridiculous
Hereditary
Judging
Legislators
Poet
Inconsistent
Wise
Jury
Politics
Judges
Idea
Mathematician
Ideas
Men
Absurd

More quotes by Thomas Paine

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The New Testament rests itself for credulity and testimony on what are called prophecies in the Old Testament, of the person called Jesus Christ and if there are no such things as prophecies of any such person in the Old Testament, the New Testament.
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The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
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Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and flourish best together.
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It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.
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The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
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Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.
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Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance.
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Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad.
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Character is much easier kept than recovered.
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It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself.
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In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings the consequence of which was there were no wars it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion.
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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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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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The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.
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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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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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The times that tried men's souls are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.
Thomas Paine
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Time makes more converts than reason.
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Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.
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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.
Thomas Paine