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Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public characters.

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
Political
Deceived
Character
Connected
Self
Characters
Right
Public
World
Politics
Term
Interest
Uniformly
Often
Suspicious

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To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
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Men did not make the earth... It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. ... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.
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I know not whether taxes are raised to fight wars, or wars are fought in order to raise taxes.
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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 more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.
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The Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the eternal laws and obligations of morality are to the conscience. It should be unalterable by any human power.
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There is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.
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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 is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.
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It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
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If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected if not, they will be despised.
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Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us.
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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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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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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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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 countries the most famous and the most respected of antiquity are those which distinguished themselves by promoting and patronizing science, and on the contrary those which neglected or discouraged it are universally denominated rude and barbarous.
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Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
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To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not.
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Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
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