The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest truest constitution on the face of the earth. We… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Our present condition is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; a constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Calumny is a vice of curious constitution; trying to kill it keeps it alive; leave it to itself and it will die… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“The answer of Solon on the question, 'Which is the most perfect popular govemment,' has never been exceeded by any man since… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
A government on the principles on which constitutional governments arising out of society are established, cannot have the right of altering itself.… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
A constitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Government has no right to make itself a party in any debates respecting the principles or mode of forming or of changing,… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
A government of our own is our natural right; and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not an ideal, but a real existence; and… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
It is for the good of nations, and not for the emolument or aggrandizement of particular individuals, that government ought to be… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution is… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
When it shall be said in any country in the world my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“No man is prejudiced in favour of a thing, knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
The book called the Bible has been voted by men, and decreed by human laws to be the word of God; and the disbelief… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. — Thomas Paine Copy Share
One would think that a system loaded with such gross and vulgar absurdities as Scripture religion is could never have obtained credit; yet we… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
What is it the Bible teaches us? - raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? - to believe that… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. — Thomas Paine Copy Share
“It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
But there are times when men have serious thoughts, and it is at such times, when they begin to think, that they begin to… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. — Thomas Paine Copy Share
“To pass from the extremes of danger to safety-from the tumult of war to the tranquility of peace, though sweet in contemplation, requires a… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
What more does man want to know than that the hand or power that made these things is divine, is omnipotent? Let him believe… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
