More Quotes by Thomas Paine
The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.
The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
Government is best which governs least
Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.
I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal.
Ye that dare oppose, not only tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
