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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

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From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.
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From whence, then, could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependant on His protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our world, because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten an apple?
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Each government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of government.
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Human nature is not of itself vicious.
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Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion.
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...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.
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But such is the irresistable nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.
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THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD: And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man.
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The idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet-laureat.
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Virtue is not hereditary.
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The aristocracy are not the farmers who work the land, and raise the produce, but are the mere consumers of the rent and when compared with the active world, are the drones, a seraglio of males, who neither collect the honey nor form the hive, but exist only for lazy enjoyment.
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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.
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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.
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Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
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The intimacy which is contracted in infancy, and friendship which is formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable.
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The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy.
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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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Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against the ambition of kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of such governments and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a nation should apply itself to reform the system.
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That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
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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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