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Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance.

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
Obey
Grows
Minds
Upon
Importance
Born
Soon
Others
Early
Insolent
Look
Mankind
Poisoned
Looks
Grow
Selected
Mind
Reign
Men
Rest

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When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.
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The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax
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Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.
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Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.
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The greatest characters the world has known, have rose on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy.
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Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.
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It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support.
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When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous.
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The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing.
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Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God.
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Titles do not count with posterity.
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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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The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
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Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself.
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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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I do not believe in the creed professed by any church that I know of. Each of these churches accuse the other of unbelief and for my part, I disbelieve them all.
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Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles he can only discover them.
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My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
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These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
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If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
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