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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.

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
Natural
Laws
Obligations
Power
General
Contain
Human
Eternal
Bill
Humans
Principles
Civil
Liberty
Obligation
Rights
Bills
Law
Morality
Community
Conscience
Unalterable

More quotes by Thomas Paine

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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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The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.
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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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The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.
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From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms! Through the land let the sound of it flee Let the far and the near all unite, with a cheer, In defense of our Liberty Tree.
Thomas Paine
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It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself.
Thomas Paine
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It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention it is only the application of them that is human.
Thomas Paine
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The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
Thomas Paine
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Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off.
Thomas Paine
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The mind, in discovering truths, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it.
Thomas Paine
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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.
Thomas Paine
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That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true.
Thomas Paine
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A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
Thomas Paine
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... in free countries the law ought to be King and there ought to be no other.
Thomas Paine
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The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.
Thomas Paine
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No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people.
Thomas Paine
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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.
Thomas Paine
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I die content, I die for the liberty of my country.
Thomas Paine
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Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
Thomas Paine
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Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.
Thomas Paine