Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry. — 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
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
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
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
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
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I… — 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
Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only… — 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 right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is… — 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 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 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
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
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
What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty,… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
The representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found. — 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
“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
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
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
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
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 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
Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
They took care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood, and they hid from the… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
The essential psychological requirement of a free society is the willingness on the part of the individual to accept responsibility for his… — 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
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 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
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, 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
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
In the first part of 'Rights of Man' I have endeavoured to show...that there does not exist a right to establish hereditary… — 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
