It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
It will be proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments have arisen, and on which they have… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry and grasping at the spoil… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living,… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected,… — 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
The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty but not the principle, for at the time they were… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. — 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
Uncritical reverence for the Founding Fathers was less ubiquitous while they actually lived. . . . "The Reign of Terror that raged… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
It appears to general observation, that revolutions create genius and talents; but those events do no more than bring them forward. There… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it… — 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
Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued.… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by… — 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
If men will permit themselves to think, as rational beings ought to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors, and the third of reason. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Each government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective nations, and… — 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 Image
“The laws of every country must be analogous to some common principle.” — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
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 Image
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
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 Image
Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
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 Image
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
