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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

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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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A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose.
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The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.
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There is something in corruption which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself to the object it looks upon, and sees everything stained and impure.
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I am sensible that he who means to do mankind a real service must set down with the determination of putting up, and bearing with all their faults, follies, prejudices and mistakes until he can convince them that he is right.
Thomas Paine
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Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange believe that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.
Thomas Paine
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We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
Thomas Paine
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I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
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The times that tried men's souls are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.
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A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.
Thomas Paine
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The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
Thomas Paine
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How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.
Thomas Paine
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All men can understand what representation is and that it must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents.
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Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.
Thomas Paine
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If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
Thomas Paine
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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.
Thomas Paine
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An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
Thomas Paine
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A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas Paine
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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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Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
Thomas Paine