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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.

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
Society
Civil
Natural
Relate
Individual
Protection
Power
Foundation
Sufficiently
Right
Members
Competent
Every
Cases
Existing
Kind
Security
Member
Men
Rights
Enjoyment

More quotes by Thomas Paine

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No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance.
Thomas Paine
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It is not the nature of avarice to be satisfied with anything but money. Every passion that acts upon mankind has a peculiar mode of operation. Many of them are temporary and fluctuating they admit of cessation and variety. But avarice is a fixed, uniform passion.
Thomas Paine
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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.
Thomas Paine
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He, who survives his reputation, lives out of despite himself, like a man listening to his own reproach.
Thomas Paine
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To take away (voting) is to reduce a man to slavery.
Thomas Paine
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Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.
Thomas Paine
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Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals.
Thomas Paine
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To believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian faith at once little and ridiculous and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air.
Thomas Paine
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Ah, reader, put thy trust in thy creator, and thou wilt be safe but if thou trustest to the book called the scriptures thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable and falsehood.
Thomas Paine
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A man may write himself out of reputation when nobody else can do it.
Thomas Paine
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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
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I know not whether taxes are raised to fight wars, or wars are fought in order to raise taxes.
Thomas Paine
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He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
Thomas Paine
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Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured
Thomas Paine
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Reason obeys itself and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
Thomas Paine
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It is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene.
Thomas Paine
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I believe in one God, and no more and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of humans and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.
Thomas Paine
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My country is wherever liberty lives.
Thomas Paine
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Tears may soothe the wounds they cannot heal.
Thomas Paine
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As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my purpose by any personal altercation and the man who cannot do this, is not fit for a public character.
Thomas Paine