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If the present generation, or any other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right of the succeeding generation to be free: wrongs cannot have a legal descent.

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
Right
Slave
Generation
Lessen
Succeed
Disposed
Generations
Succeeding
Present
Wrongs
Free
Descent
Cannot
Slaves
Doe
Legal

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Titles are like a magicians wand which circumscribe human facility and prevent us from living the lives of man.
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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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I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state up and help us lay your shoulders to the wheel better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake.
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What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue.
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What is it the Bible teaches us? - raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? - to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.
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All the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man or the unity of man, as being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions.
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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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Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.
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Civilization, or that which is so called, has operated two ways to make one part of society more affluent and the other part more wretched than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.
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Man did not make the earth, and though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity, any part of it.
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Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
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...the true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity.
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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 Almighty implanted in us these inextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of His image in our heart. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals.
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A single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrolled rabidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to the principles of liberty as that of a despotic monarch.
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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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I disbelieve all holy men and holy books.
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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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The moral duty of man consists of imitatingthe moral goodness and beneficence of God,manifested in the creation, toward all His creatures.
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All Of Us Might Wish At Times That We Lived In A More Tranquil World....(yet) Our Times Are Challenging And Filled With Opportunity.
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