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Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind.

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
Punishment
Lays
Roots
Mankind
Humanity
Punishments
Teach
Corrupt
Government
Root
Governments

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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.
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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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We must be compelled to hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and new law called the Old and New Testament, to be impositions, fables and forgeries.
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To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin.
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There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is not to be found inany other system of religion. All other systems have something in them that either shock our reason, or are repugnant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in order to force himself to believe them.
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The essential psychological requirement of a free society is the willingness on the part of the individual to accept responsibility for his life. - Edith Packer When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny.
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... a thirst for power is the natural disease of monarchy.
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Prejudice, like the spider, makes everywhere its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same. Prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind.
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But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?
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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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Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
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To believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian faith at once little and ridiculous and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air.
Thomas Paine
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Prophesying is lying professionally.
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Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.
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They took care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood, and they hid from the understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know, namely, that government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.
Thomas Paine
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Government has no right to make itself a party in any debates respecting the principles or mode of forming or of changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who exercise the powers of government, that constitutions, and the governments issuing from them, are established.
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Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage than any victory with all its expence.
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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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Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it.
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Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect that his mind was forever young, his temper ever serene science, that never grows gray, was always his mistress. He was never without an object, for when we cease to have an object, we become like an invalid in a hospital waiting for death.
Thomas Paine