It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
There are two distinct classes of men - those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
All men can understand what representation is; and that it must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation. — 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
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 representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised. — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Those words, temperate and moderate, are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good is not… — 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
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
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
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
If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy . . . to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break… — 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
As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example for the poor to plunder the rich of his… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
It is unnatural that a pure stream should flow from a foul fountain its vices are but a continuation of the vices… — 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
As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of… — 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
Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor. — 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
A single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrolled rabidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of 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
To live with our enemies as if they may some time become our friends, and to live with our friends as if… — 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 being right; and when he sees it is not so, the prejudice will be gone. We have but a defective idea of what prejudice is. It might be said, that until men think for themselves the… — Thomas Paine Copy Share
“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 doubt the truth of the Christian religion; and well they may, for it is too fanciful and too full of conjecture, inconsistency, improbability and irrationality, to afford consolation to the thoughtful man. His reason revolts against… — 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 Image
