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... a thirst for power is the natural disease of monarchy.
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
Monarchy
Thirst
Disease
Natural
Power
More quotes by Thomas Paine
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.
Thomas Paine
Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system. The foundation and superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks and ever will.
Thomas Paine
An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
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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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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.
Thomas Paine
Titles are like a magicians wand which circumscribe human facility and prevent us from living the lives of man.
Thomas Paine
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.
Thomas Paine
When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir.
Thomas Paine
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
When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
Thomas Paine
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
Thomas Paine
The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice.
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Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
Thomas Paine
That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
Thomas Paine
Prophesying is lying professionally.
Thomas Paine
...the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
Thomas Paine
A government of our own is our natural right and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance.
Thomas Paine
He who takes nature for his guide, is not easily beaten out of his argument
Thomas Paine
The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the original system of theology.
Thomas Paine
For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.
Thomas Paine
