To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government.” — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
War is the gambling table of governments, and citizens the dupes of the game. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“A hereditary monarch is as absurd a position as a hereditary doctor or mathematician.” — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
From such beginnings of governments, what could be expected, but a continual system of war and extortion? — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires… — 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
When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“A government or an administration, who means and acts honestly, has nothing to fear, and consequently has nothing to conceal;” — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
We repose an unwise confidence in any government, or in any men, when we invest them officially with too much, or an… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security. — 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
There is existing in man, a mass of sense lying in a dormant state. The construction of government ought to be such… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his… — 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
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
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
Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
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
The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practiced in mixed governments, is inconsistent with the… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
“Nothing can appear more contradictory than the principles on which the old governments began, and the condition to which society, civilisation and… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may… — 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
“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
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
“There is an unnatural unfitness in an aristocracy to be legislators for a nation. Their ideas of distributive justice are corrupted at… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Government," says Swift, "is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many heads. — 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
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry. — 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
