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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

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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
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Harmless
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Degrade
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More quotes by Thomas Paine

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Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
Thomas Paine
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It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.
Thomas Paine
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The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale.
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.
Thomas Paine
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It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
Thomas Paine
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Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage than any victory with all its expence.
Thomas Paine
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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.
Thomas Paine
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The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.
Thomas Paine
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I disbelieve all holy men and holy books.
Thomas Paine
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Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad.
Thomas Paine
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Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
Thomas Paine
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A single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrolled rabidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to the principles of liberty as that of a despotic monarch.
Thomas Paine
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The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and simple, and consists but of two points--his duty God, which every man must feel and, with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by.
Thomas Paine
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The graceful pride of truth knows no extremes, and preserves, in every latitude of life, the right-angled character of man.
Thomas Paine
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And when we view a flag, which to the eye is beautiful, and to contemplate its rise and origin inspires a sensation of sublime delight, our national honor must unite with our interests to prevent injury to the one, or insult to the other.
Thomas Paine
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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.
Thomas Paine
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In the progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life, we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but frequently neglect to gather up experiences as we go.
Thomas Paine
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Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time.
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.
Thomas Paine
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Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.
Thomas Paine