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The greatest characters the world has known, have rose on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy.

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
Keep
Floor
Character
Pace
Able
Rose
World
Democratic
Characters
Democracy
Greatest
Proportionate
Known
Aristocracy

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My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
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From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.
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The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world not destitute of arms, for all would be alike but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside ... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them ... the weak will become prey to the strong.
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The final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
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Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
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Is it because you are sunk in the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honor of your Creator, that you listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference?
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The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.
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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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The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
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Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion.
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And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man.
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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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It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.
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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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As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my purpose by any personal altercation and the man who cannot do this, is not fit for a public character.
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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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I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
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The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale.
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I do not believe in the creed professed by any church that I know of. Each of these churches accuse the other of unbelief and for my part, I disbelieve them all.
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There is something in corruption which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself to the object it looks upon, and sees everything stained and impure.
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