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Every Science Has For Its Basis A System Of Principles As Fixed And Unalterable As Those By Which The Universe Is Regulated And Governed. Man Cannot Make Principles; He Can Only Discover Them.

-Thomas Paine

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Every Science Has For

Thomas Paine

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Every Science Has For Its Basis A System Of Principles As Fixed And Unalterable As Those By Which The Universe Is Regulated And Governed. Man Cannot Make Principles; He Can Only Discover Them.

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To Take Away (voting) Is To Reduce A Man To Slavery.

We Ought Therefore To Suspect That A Great Mass Of Information Respecting The Bible, And The Introduction Of It Into The World, Has Been Suppressed By The United Tyranny Of Church And State, For The Purpose Of Keeping People In Ignorance, And Which Ought To Be Known.

...it Would Be More Consistent That We Call [the Bible] The Work Of A Demon Than The Word Of God. It Is A History Of Wickedness That Has Served To Corrupt And Brutalize Mankind.

The Danger To Which The Success Of Revolutions Is Most Exposed, Is That Of Attempting Them Before The Principles On Which They Proceed, And The Advantages To Result From Them, Are Sufficiently Seen And Understood.

It May Perhaps Be Said That It Signifies Nothing To A Man What Is Done To Him After He Is Dead; But It Signifies Much To The Living; It Either Tortures Their Feelings Or Hardens Their Hearts.

Belief In A Cruel God Makes A Cruel Man.

I Would Give Worlds, If I Had Them, If The Age Of Reason Had Never Been Published. O Lord, Help! Stay With Me! It Is Hell To Be Left Alone.

Reason And Ignorance, The Opposites Of Each Other, Influence The Great Bulk Of Mankind. If Either Of These Can Be Rendered Sufficiently Extensive In A Country, The Machinery Of Government Goes Easily On. Reason Obeys Itself; And Ignorance Submits To Whatever Is Dictated To It.

'tis The Business Of Little Minds To Shrink; But He Whose Heart Is Firm, And Whose Conscience Approves His Conduct, Will Pursue His Principles Unto Death.

Government Ought To Be As Much Open To Improvement As Anything Which Appertains To Man, Instead Of Which It Has Been Monopolized From Age To Age, By The Most Ignorant And Vicious Of The Human Race. Need We Any Other Proof Of Their Wretched Management, Than The Excess Of Debts And Taxes With Which Every Nation Groans, And The Quarrels Into Which They Have Precipitated The World?"

For Freemen Like Brothers Agree; With One Spirit Endured, They One Friendship Pursued, And Their Temple Was Liberty Tree

... In Free Countries The Law Ought To Be King; And There Ought To Be No Other.

The Creation Is The Bible Of The Deist. He There Reads, In The Handwriting Of The Creator Himself, The Certainty Of His Existence And The Immutability Of His Power, And All Other Bibles And Testaments Are To Him Forgeries.

The Slavery Of Fear Had Made Men Afraid To Think.

But Such Is The Irresistable Nature Of Truth, That All It Asks, And All It Wants Is The Liberty Of Appearing.

It Is A Faculty Of The Human Mind To Become What It Contemplates, And To Act In Unison With Its Object.

All The Religions Known In The World Are Founded, So Far As They Relate To Man Or The Unity Of Man, As Being All Of One Degree. Whether In Heaven Or In Hell, Or In Whatever State Man May Be Supposed To Exist Hereafter, The Good And The Bad Are The Only Distinctions.

A Bad Cause Will Ever Be Supported By Bad Means And Bad Men.

When It Shall Be Said In Any Country In The World My Poor Are Happy; Neither Ignorance Nor Distress Is To Be Found Among Them; My Jails Are Empty Of Prisoners, My Streets Of Beggars; The Aged Are Not In Want; The Taxes Are Not Oppressive; The Rational World Is My Friend, Because I Am A Friend Of Its Happiness: When These Things Can Be Said, There May That Country Boast Its Constitution And Its Government

In Reviewing The History Of The English Government, Its Wars And Its Taxes, A Bystander, Not Blinded By Prejudice Nor Warped By Interest, Would Declare That Taxes Were Not Raised To Carry On Wars, But That Wars Were Raised To Carry On Taxes.

My Country Is Wherever Liberty Lives.

And This Manner Of Speaking Of The Almighty, As One Would Speak Of A Man, Is Consistent With Nothing But The Stupidity Of The Bible.

Our Present Condition Is, Legislation Without Law; Wisdom Without A Plan; A Constitution Without A Name; And, What Is Strangely Astonishing, Perfect Independence Contending For Dependence.

A Nation Under A Well Regulated Government, Should Permit None To Remain Uninstructed. It Is Monarchical And Aristocratical Government Only That Requires Ignorance For Its Support.

That Which Is Now Called Natural Philosophy, Embracing The Whole Circle Of Science, Of Which Astronomy Occupies The Chief Place, Is The Study Of The Works Of God, And Of The Power And Wisdom Of God In His Works, And Is The True Theology.

The Period Of Debate Is Closed. Arms, As A Last Resource, Must Decide The Contest.

To Reason With Goverments, As They Have Existed For Ages, Is To Argue With Brutes. It Is Only From The Nations Themselves That Reforms Can Be Expected

It Is Important That We Should Never Lose Sight Of This Distinction. We Must Not Confuse The Peoples With Their Governments.

The Almighty Implanted In Us These Inextinguishable Feelings For Good And Wise Purposes. They Are The Guardians Of His Image In Our Heart. They Distinguish Us From The Herd Of Common Animals.

What Is It The Bible Teaches Us? -- Rapine, Cruelty, And Murder.

Founding Fathers Religion

The Earth, In Its Natural, Uncultivated State Was, And Ever Would Have Continued To Be, The Common Property Of The Human Race." As The Land Gets Cultivated, "it Is The Value Of The Improvement, Only, And Not The Earth Itself, That Is In Individual Property. Every Proprietor, Therefore, Of Cultivated Lands, Owes To The Community A Ground-rent..to Every Person, Rich Or Poor...because It Is In Lieu Of The Natural Inheritance, Which, As A Right, Belongs To Every Man, Over And Above The Property He May Have Created, Or Inherited From Those Who Did

... A Thirst For Power Is The Natural Disease Of Monarchy.

Thirst For Power

Of More Worth Is One Honest Man To Society, And In The Sight Of God, Than All The Crowned Ruffians That Ever Lived.

The Story Of The Whale Swallowing Jonah, Though A Whale Is Large Enough To Do It, Borders Greatly On The Marvelous; But It Would Have Approached Nearer To The Idea Of A Miracle If Jonah Had Swallowed The Whale.

Liberty Cannot Be Purchased By A Wish.

The Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph.

Rights Are Not Gifts From One Man To Another, Nor From One Class Of Men To Another. It Is Impossible To Discover Any Origin Of Rights Otherwise Than In The Origin Of Man; It Consequently Follows That Rights Appertain To Man In Right Of His Existence, And Must Therefore Be Equal To Every Man.

It Is From Our Enemies That We Often Gain Excellent Maxims, And Are Frequently Surprised Into Reason By Their Mistakes.

[a]ll Churches, Whether Jewish, Christian Or Muslim, Are Simply Human Inventions. They Use Fear To Enslave Us. They Are A Monopoly For Power And Profit.

The Trade Of Governing Has Always Been Monopolized By The Most Ignorant And The Most Rascally Individuals Of Mankind.

Ye That Dare Oppose, Not Only Tyranny, But The Tyrant, Stand Forth!

There Now Remain Only A Few Books, Which They Call Books Of The Lesser Prophets; And As I Have Already Shown That The Greater Are Impostors, It Would Be Cowardice To Disturb The Repose Of The Little Ones. Let Them Sleep, Then, In The Arms Of Their Nurses, The Priests, And Both Be Forgotten Together.

I Am Sensible That He Who Means To Do Mankind A Real Service Must Set Down With The Determination Of Putting Up, And Bearing With All Their Faults, Follies, Prejudices And Mistakes Until He Can Convince Them That He Is Right.

All Men Can Understand What Representation Is; And That It Must Necessarily Include A Variety Of Knowledge And Talents.

It Is Painful To Behold A Man Employing His Talents To Corrupt Himself.

It Is The Fable Of Jesus Christ, As Told In The New Testament, And The Wild And Visionary Doctrine Raised Thereon, Against Which I Contend. The Story, Taking It As It Is Told, Is Blasphemously Obscene.

It Is The Duty Of Every Man, As Far As His Ability Extends, To Detect And Expose Delusion And Error.

The Greatest Tyrannies Are Always Perpetuated In The Name Of The Noblest Causes.

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.

War Involves In Its Progress Such A Train Of Unforeseen Circumstances That No Human Wisdom Can Calculate The End; It Has But One Thing Certain, And That Is To Increase Taxes.

When We Are Planning For Posterity, We Ought To Remember That Virtue Is Not Hereditary.

The Allwise Creator Hath Been Dishonored By Being Made The Author Of Fable And The Human Mind Degraded By Believing It.

The Christian Religion And Masonry Have One And The Same Common Origin: Both Are Derived From The Worship Of The Sun. The Difference Between Their Origin Is, That The Christian Religion Is A Parody On The Worship Of The Sun, In Which They Put A Man Whom They Call Christ, In The Place Of The Sun, And Pay Him The Same Adoration Which Was Originally Paid To The Sun.

He That Rebels Against Reason Is A Real Rebel, But He That In Defence Of Reason Rebels Against Tyranny Has A Better Title To Defender Of The Faith, Than George The Third.

The Essential Psychological Requirement Of A Free Society Is The Willingness On The Part Of The Individual To Accept Responsibility For His Life. - Edith Packer When The Government Fears The People, It Is Liberty. When The People Fear The Government, It Is Tyranny.

Take Away From Genesis The Belief That Moses Was The Author, On Which Only The Strange Believe That It Is The Word Of God Has Stood, And There Remains Nothing Of Genesis But An Anonymous Book Of Stories, Fables, And Traditionary Or Invented Absurdities, Or Of Downright Lies.

Tears May Soothe The Wounds They Cannot Heal.

Here Then Is The Origin And Rise Of Government; Namely, A Mode Rendered Necessary By The Inability Of Moral Virtue To Govern The World; Here Too Is The Design And End Of Government, Viz. Freedom And Security.

Titles Are Like A Magicians Wand Which Circumscribe Human Facility And Prevent Us From Living The Lives Of Man.

Taxes Were Not Raised To Carry On Wars, But That Wars Were Raised To Carry On Taxes.

He Who Dares Not Offend Cannot Be Honest.

There Are Two Distinct Classes Of What Are Called Thoughts: Those That We Produce In Ourselves By Reflection And The Act Of Thinking And Those That Bolt Into The Mind Of Their Own Accord.

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 His Creed. He Sees That None Of Its Articles Are Proved, Or Can Be Proved.

That Which We Obtain Too Easily, We Esteem Too Lightly.

In The Early Ages Of The World, According To The Scripture Chronology, There Were No Kings; The Consequence Of Which Was There Were No Wars; It Is The Pride Of Kings Which Throws Mankind Into Confusion.

The Moral Duty Of Man Consists Of Imitatingthe Moral Goodness And Beneficence Of God,manifested In The Creation, Toward All His Creatures.

The Intimacy Which Is Contracted In Infancy, And Friendship Which Is Formed In Misfortune, Are, Of All Others, The Most Lasting And Unalterable.

War Is The Gambling Table Of Governments, And Citizens The Dupes Of The Game.

The Most Horrible Wickedness And Cruelties, And The Greatest Miseries That Have Troubled The Human Race Began With This Thing Called Revelation, Or Revealed Religion. ... It Would Be Far, Far Better For Us To Let A Thousand Devils Roam The World, And Publicly Preach The Doctrine Of Devils (if There Were Such A Thing, Which There Isn't), Than To Let One Impostor And Monster Such A Moses, Joshua, Samuel Or The Bible Prophets Come Speaking The So-called Word Of God, And Causing Men To Believe It.

It Requires But A Very Small Glance Of Thought To Perceive, That Although Laws Made In One Generation Often Continue In Force Through Succeeding Generations, Yet That They Continue To Derive Their Force From The Consent Of The Living. A Law Not Repealed Continues In Force, Not Because It Cannot Be Repealed, But Because It Is Not Repealed; And The Non Repealing Passes For Consent.

It Is Never To Be Expected In A Revolution That Every Man Is To Change His Opinion At The Same Moment. There Never Yet Was Any Truth Or Any Principle So Irresistibly Obvious That All Men Believed It At Once. Time And Reason Must Cooperate With Each Other To The Final Establishment Of Any Principle; And Therefore Those Who May Happen To Be First Convinced Have Not A Right To Persecute Others, On Whom Conviction Operates More Slowly. The Moral Principle Of Revolutions Is To Instruct, Not To Destroy.

The Stupid Texts Of The Bible - From Which, Be The Talents Of The Preacher What They May, Only Stupid Sermons Can Be Preached.

Prejudice, Like The Spider, Makes Everywhere Its Home. It Has Neither Taste Nor Choice Of Place, And All That It Requires Is Room. If The One Prepares Her Food By Poisoning It To Her Palate And Her Use, The Other Does The Same. Prejudice May Be Denominated The Spider Of The Mind.

It Is, I Believe, Impossible To Find In Any Story Upon Record So Many And Such Glaring Absurdities, Contradictions, And Falsehoods, As Are In The Books [the Gospels Of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John]. They Are More Numerous And Striking Than I Had Any Expectation Of Finding, When I Began This Examination.

Is It Because You Are Sunk In The Cruelty Of Superstition, Or Feel No Interest In The Honor Of Your Creator, That You Listen To The Horrid Tales Of The Bible, Or Hear Them With Callous Indifference?

Every National Church Or Religion Has Established Itself By Pretending Some Special Mission From God, Communicated To Certain Individuals. The Jews Have Their Moses; The Christians Their Jesus Christ, Their Apostles And Saints; And The Turks Their Mahomet; As If The Way To God Was Not Open To Every Man Alike.

Government Is Not A Trade Which Any Man Or Body Of Men Has A Right To Set Up And Exercise For His Own Emolument, But Is Altogether A Trust, In Right Of Those By Whom That Trust Is Delegated, And By Whom It Is Always Resumable. It Has Of Itself No Rights; They Are Altogether Duties.

Man Did Not Make The Earth, And Though He Had A Natural Right To Occupy It, He Had No Right To Locate As His Property In Perpetuity, Any Part Of It.

Better Fare Hard With Good Men Than Feast It With Bad.

Let It Be Told To The Future World, That In The Depth Of Winter, When Nothing But Hope And Virtue Could Survive, That The City And The Country, Alarmed At One Common Danger, Came Forth To Meet And To Repulse It. Say Not That Thousands Are Gone, Turn Out Your Tens Of Thousands; Throw Not The Burden Of The Day Upon Providence, But "show Your Faith By Your Works," That God May Bless You. It Matters Not Where You Live, Or What Rank Of Life You Hold, The Evil Or The Blessing Will Reach You All.

Had The News Of Salvation By Jesus Christ Been Inscribed On The Face Of The Sun And The Moon, In Characters That All Nations Would Have Understood, The Whole Earth Had Known It In Twenty-four Hours, And All Nations Would Have Believed It; Whereas, Though It Is Now Almost Two Thousand Years Since, As They Tell Us, Christ Came Upon Earth, Not A Twentieth Part Of The People Of The Earth Know Anything Of It, And Among Those Who Do, The Wiser Part Do Not Believe It.

Mingling Religion With Politics May Be Disavowed And Reprobated By Every Inhabitant Of America.

No Country Can Be Called Free Which Is Governed By An Absolute Power; And It Matters Not Whether It Be An Absolute Royal Power Or An Absolute Legislative Power, As The Consequences Will Be The Same To The People.

It Is The Direction And Not The Magnitude Which Is To Be Taken Into Consideration.

The Deist Needs None Of Those Tricks And Shows Called Miracles To Confirm His Faith, For What Can Be A Greater Miracle Than The Creation Itself, And His Own Existence?

Aristocracy Is Kept Up By Family Tyranny And Injustice.

I Have As Little Superstition In Me As Any Man Living, But My Secret Opinion Has Ever Been, And Still Is, That God Almighty Will Not Give Up A People To Military Destruction, Or Leave Them Unsupportedly To Perish, Who Have So Earnestly And So Repeatedly Sought To Avoid The Calamities Of War, By Every Decent Method Which Wisdom Could Invent. Neither Have I So Much Of The Infidel In Me, As To Suppose That He Has Relinquished The Government Of The World, And Given Us Up To The Care Of Devils.

Cultivation Is At Least One Of The Greatest Natural Improvements Ever Made By Human Invention. It Has Given To Created Earth A Tenfold Value. But The Landed Monopoly That Began With It Has Produced The Greatest Evil. It Has Dispossessed More Than Half The Inhabitants Of Every Nation Of Their Natural Inheritance, Without Providing For Them, As Ought To Have Been Done, An Indemnification For That Loss, And Has Thereby Created A Species Of Poverty And Wretchedness That Did Not Exist Before.

There Is Existing In Man, A Mass Of Sense Lying In A Dormant State. The Construction Of Government Ought To Be Such As To Bring Forward, By A Quiet And Regular Operation, All That Extent Of Capacity.

The Christian Church Has Set Up A Religion Of Pomp And Revenue In Pretended Imitation Of A Person (jesus) Who Lived A Life Of Poverty.

Not A Place Upon Earth Might Be So Happy As America. Her Situation Is Remote From All The Wrangling World, And She Has Nothing To Do But To Trade With Them.

If Men Will Permit Themselves To Think, As Rational Beings Ought To Think, Nothing Can Appear More Ridiculous And Absurd, Exclusive Of All Moral Reflections, Than To Be At The Expence Of Building Navies, Filling Them With Men, And Then Hauling Them Into The Ocean, To Try Which Can Sink Each Other Fastester. Peace, Which Costs Nothing, Is Attended With Infintely More Advantage Than Any Victory With All Its Expence. But This, Though It Best Answers The Purpose Of Nations, Does Not That Of Court Governments, Whose Habited Policy Is Pretence For Taxation, Places, And Offices.

We Feel Something Like Respect For Consistency Even In Error. We Lament The Virtue That Is Debauched Into A Vice; But The Vice That Affects A Virtue Becomes The More Detestable.

The Word Of God Is The Creation We Behold: And It Is In This Word, Which No Human Invention Can Counterfeit Or Alter, That God Speaketh Universally To Man.

But There Is Another And Greater Distinction For Which No Truly Natural Or Religious Reason Can Be Assigned, And That Is The Distinction Of Men Into Kings And Subjects. Male And Female Are The Distinctions Of Nature, Good And Bad The Distinctions Of Heaven; But How A Race Of Men Came Into The World So Exalted Above The Rest, And Distinguished Like Some New Species, Is Worth Inquiring Into, And Whether They Are The Means Of Happiness Or Of Misery To Mankind.

As Parents, We Can Have No Joy, Knowing That This Government Is Not Sufficiently Lasting To Ensure Any Thing Which We May Bequeath To Posterity: And By A Plain Method Of Argument, As We Are Running The Next Generation Into Debt, We Ought To Do The Work Of It, Otherwise We Use Them Meanly And Pitifully. In Order To Discover The Line Of Our Duty Rightly, We Should Take Our Children In Our Hand, And Fix Our Station A Few Years Farther Into Life; That Eminence Will Present A Prospect, Which A Few Present Fears And Prejudices Conceal From Our Sight.

Customs Will Often Outlive The Remembrance Of Their Origin.

Positive Atheism

The Greatest Characters The World Has Known, Have Rose On The Democratic Floor. Aristocracy Has Not Been Able To Keep A Proportionate Pace With Democracy.

Reputation Is What Men And Women Think Of Us; Character Is What God And Angels Know Of Us.

Government, Like Dress, Is The Badge Of Lost Innocence.

The Christian Religion Begins With A Dream And Ends With A Murder.

The Times That Tried Men's Souls Are Over-and The Greatest And Completest Revolution The World Ever Knew, Gloriously And Happily Accomplished.

The Representative System Of Government Is Calculated To Produce The Wisest Laws, By Collecting Wisdom Where It Can Be Found.

The Prejudice Of Unfounded Belief Often Degenerates Into The Prejudice Of Custom, And Becomes At Last Rank Hypocrisy. When Men, From Custom Or Fashion Or Any Worldly Motive, Profess Or Pretend To Believe What They Do Not Believe, Nor Can Give Any Reason For Believing, They Unship The Helm Of Their Morality, And Being No Longer Honest To Their Own Minds They Feel No Moral Difficulty In Being Unjust To Others.

Toleration Is Not The Opposite Of Intoleration, But It Is The Counterfeit Of It. Both Are Despotisms. The One Assumes To Itself The Right Of Withholding Liberty Of Conscience, And The Other Of Granting It. The One Is The Pope, Armed With Fire And Fagot, And The Other Is The Pope Selling Or Granting Indulgences.

One Good Schoolmaster Is Of More Use Than A Hundred Priests.

Our Greatest Enemies, The Ones We Must Fight Most Often, Are Within.

I Had Come To Realize The Importance Of The Nation, And Of Shared, Communal, Social Responsibility, To Be Held As Equally Important As Individual Concerns. The Elderly, The Widowed, Newly Married Couples, The Poor, The Unemployed, Disbanded Soldiers And Children, Who Would Be Required To Attend School, Must Be Provided For From State Funds. And All This Support Is Not The Nature Of Charity, But Of A Right.

It Is A General Idea, That When Taxes Are Once Laid On, They Are Never Taken Off.

The Right Of Voting For Representatives , Is The Primary Right By Which Other Rights Are Protected.

Representatives

I Wish Most Anxiously To See My Much Loved America - It Is The Country From Whence All Reformations Must Originally Spring - I Despair Of Seeing An Abolition Of The Infernal Trafic In Negroes - We Must Push That Matter Further On Your Side The Water - I Wish That A Few Well Instructed Negroes Could Be Sent Among Their Brethren In Bondage, For Until They Are Enabled To Take Their Own Part Nothing Will Be Done.

Government Is A Necessary Evil

Wherefore, Security Being The True Design And End Of Government, It Unanswerably Follows That Whatever Form Thereof Appears Most Likely To Ensure It To Us, With The Least Expense And Greatest Benefit, Is Preferable To All Others.

The Balance Of Power Is The Scale Of Peace.

Second Amendment

It Is Only By The Exercise Of Reason That Man Can Discover God.

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.

One Of The Evils Of Paper Money Is That It Turns The Whole Country Into Stock Jobbers. The Precariousness Of Its Value And The Uncertainty Of Its Fate Continually Operate, Night And Day, To Produce This Destructive Effect. Having No Real Value In Itself It Depends For Support Upon Accident, Caprice, And Party; And As It Is The Interest Of Some To Depreciate And Of Others To Raise Its Value, There Is A Continual Invention Going On That Destroys The Morals Of The Country.

The Strength And Power Of Despotism Consists Wholly In The Fear Of Resistance.

The Accumulation Of Great Wealth Is, In Many Instances, The Effect Of Paying Too Little For The Labor That Produced It, The Consequence Of Which Is That The Working People Perish In Old Age And The Employer Abounds In Affluence.

All Of Us Might Wish At Times That We Lived In A More Tranquil World....(yet) Our Times Are Challenging And Filled With Opportunity.

The Almighty Lecturer, By Displaying The Principles Of Science In The Structure Of The Universe, Has Invited Man To Study And To Imitation. It Is As If He Has Said To The Inhabitants Of This Globe That We Call Ours, "i Have Made An Earth For Man To Dwell Upon, And I Have Rendered The Starry Heavens Visible, To Teach Him Science And The Arts. He Can Now Provide For His Own Comfort, And Learn From My Munificence To All To Be Kind To Each Other.

And As To You, Sir, Treacherous In Private Friendship And A Hypocrite In Public Life, The World Will Be Puzzled To Decide Whether You Are An Apostate Or An Impostor; Whether You Have Abandoned Good Principles, Or Whether You Ever Had Any.

The Aristocracy Are Not The Farmers Who Work The Land, And Raise The Produce, But Are The Mere Consumers Of The Rent; And When Compared With The Active World, Are The Drones, A Seraglio Of Males, Who Neither Collect The Honey Nor Form The Hive, But Exist Only For Lazy Enjoyment.

The Right Of Voting For Representatives Is The Primary Right By Which Other Rights Are Protected. To Take Away This Right Is To Reduce A Man To Slavery, For Slavery Consists In Being Subject To The Will Of Another, And He That Has Not A Vote In The Election Of Representatives Is In This Case.

As Priestcraft Was Always The Enemy Of Knowledge, Because Priestcraft Supports Itself By Keeping People In Delusion And Ignorance, It Was Consistent With Its Policy To Make The Acquisition Of Knowledge A Real Sin.

The Study Of Theology, As It Stands In Christian Churches, Is The Study Of Nothing; It Is Founded On Nothing; It Rests On No Principles; It Proceeds By No Authorities; It Has No Data; It Can Demonstrate Nothing; And It Admits Of No Conclusion.

Governments Arise Either Out Of The People Or Over The People.

It Can Only Be By Blinding The Understanding Of Man, And Making Him Believe That Government Is Some Wonderful Mysterious Thing, That Excessive Revenues Are Obtained. Monarchy Is Well Calculated To Ensure This End. It Is The Popery Of Government; A Thing Kept Up To Amuse The Ignorant, And Quiet Them Into Taxes.

Mysterious Things

The Cunning Of The Fox Is As Murderous As The Violence Of The Wolf.

...the True Greatness Of A Nation Is Founded On Principles Of Humanity.

Wisdom Is Not The Purchase Of A Day

The New Testament, They Tell Us, Is Founded Upon The Prophecies Of The Old; If So, It Must Follow The Fate Of Its Foundation.

It Is Necessary To The Happiness Of Man That He Be Mentally Faithful To Himself.

The United States Of America Will Sound As Pompously In The World Or In History As The Kingdom Of Great Britain.

Religion Is A History Of Wickedness That Has Served To Corrupt And Brutalize Humankind; And, For My Part, I Sincerely Detest It As I Detest Everything That Is Cruel.

Now, Which Am I To Believe, A Book That Any Impostor Might Make And Call The Word Of God, Or The Creation Itself Which None But An Almighty Power Could Make? For The Bible Says One Thing; And The Creation Says The Contrary. The Bible Represents God With All The Passions Of A Mortal, And The Creation Proclaims Him With All The Attributes Of A God.

Truth Never Envelops Itself In Mystery, And The Mystery In Which It Is At Any Time Enveloped Is The Work Of Its Antagonist, And Never Of Itself.

A Single Legislature, On Account Of The Superabundance Of Its Power, And The Uncontrolled Rabidity Of Its Execution, Becomes As Dangerous To The Principles Of Liberty As That Of A Despotic Monarch.

We Have It In Our Power To Begin The World Over Again.

The Burden Of The National Debt Consists Not In Its Being So Many Millions, Or So Many Hundred Millions, But In The Quantity Of Taxes Collected Every Year To Pay The Interest. If This Quantity Continue The Same, The Burden Of The National Debt Is The Same To All Intents And Purposes, Be The Capital More Or Less.

What Is It The Bible Teaches Us? - Raping, Cruelty, And Murder. What Is It The New Testament Teaches Us? - To Believe That The Almighty Committed Debauchery With A Woman Engaged To Be Married, And The Belief Of This Debauchery Is Called Faith.

It Is The Madness Of Folly, To Expect Mercy From Those Who Have Refused To Do Justice; And Even Mercy, Where Conquest Is The Object, Is Only A Trick Of War; The Cunning Of The Fox Is As Murderous As The Violence Of The Wolf.

In Deism Our Reason And Our Belief Are Happily United.

The Intellectual Part Of Religion Is A Private Affair Between Every Man And His Maker, And In Which No Third Party Has Any Right To Interfere. The Practical Part Consists In Our Doing Good To Each Other. But Since Religion Has Been Made Into A Trade, The Practical Part Has Been Made To Consist Of Ceremonies Performed By Men Called Priests ... By Devices Of This Kind True Religion Has Been Banished, And Such Means Have Been Found Out To Extract Money, Even From The Pockets Of The Poor, Instead Of Contributing To Their Relief.

How Strangely Is Antiquity Treated! To Answer Some Purposes It Is Spoken Of As The Times Of Darkness And Ignorance, And To Answer Others, It Is Put For The Light Of The World.

The End Of All Political Associations Is The Preservation Of The Natural And Imprescriptible Rights Of Man; And These Rights Are Liberty, Property, Security, And Resistance Of Oppression.

Those Who Expect To Reap The Blessing Of Freedom Must Undertake To Support It.

O Ye That Love Mankind! Ye That Dare Oppose, Not Only The Tyranny, But The Tyrant, Stand Forth! Every Spot Of The Old World Is Overrun With Oppression. Freedom Hath Been Hunted Round The Globe. Asia, And Africa, Have Long Expelled Her. Europe Regards Her Like A Stranger, And England Hath Given Her Warning To Depart. O! Receive The Fugitive, And Prepare In Time An Asylum For Mankind.

It Appears To General Observation, That Revolutions Create Genius And Talents; But Those Events Do No More Than Bring Them Forward. There Is Existing In Man, A Mass Of Sense Lying In A Dormant State, And Which, Unless Something Excites It To Action, Will Descend With Him, In That Condition, To The Grave. As It Is To The Advantage Of Society That The Whole Of Its Faculties Should Be Employed, The Construction Of Government Ought To Be Such As To Bring Forward, By A Quiet And Regular Operation, All That Extent Of Capacity Which Never Fails To Appear In Revolutions.

For The Fate Of Charles The First, Hath Only Made Kings More Subtle — Not More Just.

The Evil That Has Resulted From The Error Of The Schools, In Teaching Natural Philosophy As An Accomplishment Only, Has Been That Of Generating In The Pupils A Species Of Atheism. Instead Of Looking Through The Works Of Creation To The Creator Himself, They Stop Short, And Employ The Knowledge They Acquire To Create Doubts Of His Existence. They Labour With Studied Ingenuity To Ascribe Every Thing They Behold To Innate Properties Of Matter, And Jump Over All The Rest By Saying, That Matter Is Eternal.

The Birthday Of A New World Is At Hand.

A Long Habit Of Not Thinking A Thing Wrong Gives It A Superficial Appearance Of Being Right.

The Real Man Smiles In Trouble, Gathers Strength From Distress, And Grows Brave By Reflection.

Evils, Like Poisons, Have Their Uses, And There Are Diseases Which No Other Remedy Can Reach.

There Exists In Man A Mass Of Sense Lying In A Dormant State, And Which, Unless Something Excites It To Action, Will Descend With Him, In That Condition,to The Grave.

Our Citizenship In The United States Is Our National Character. Our Citizenship In Any Particular State Is Only Our Local Distinction. By The Latter We Are Known At Home, By The Former To The World. Our Great Title Is Americans.

A Man Will Pass Better Through The World With A Thousand Open Errors Upon His Back Than In Being Detected In One Sly Falsehood. When One Is Detected, A Thousand Are Suspected.

Everything Wonderful In Appearance Has Been Ascribed To Angels, To Devils, Or To Saints. Everything Ancient Has Some Legendary Tale Annexed To It. The Common Operations Of Nature Have Not Escaped Their Practice Of Corrupting Everything.

Wisdom Degenerates In Governments As Governments Increase In Age.

To Possess Ourselves Of A Clear Idea Of What Government Is, Or Ought To Be, We Must Trace It To Its Origin.

It Is Often Said In The Bible That God Spake Unto Moses, But How Do You Know That God Spake Unto Moses? Because, You Will Say, The Bible Says So. The Koran Says, That God Spake Unto Mahomet, Do You Believe That Too? No. Why Not? Because, You Will Say, You Do Not Believe It; And So Because You Do, And Because You Don't Is All The Reason You Can Give For Believing Or Disbelieving Except That You Will Say That Mahomet Was An Impostor. And How Do You Know Moses Was Not An Impostor?

Is It Not A Species Of Blasphemy To Call The New Testament Revealed Religion, When We See In It Such Contradictions And Absurdities.

On This Question Of War, Three Things Are To Be Considered. First, The Right Of Declaring It: Secondly, The Expense Of Supporting It: Thirdly, The Mode Of Conducting It After It Is Declared.

The Final Event To Himself Has Been, That As He Rose Like A Rocket, He Fell Like The Stick.

The Obscene And Vulgar Stories In The Bible Are As Repugnant To Our Ideas Of The Purity Of A Divine Being, As The Horrid Cruelties And Murders It Ascribes To Him Are Repugnant To Our Ideas Of His Justice.

The Graceful Pride Of Truth Knows No Extremes, And Preserves, In Every Latitude Of Life, The Right-angled Character Of Man.

Common Sense Will Tell Us, That The Power Which Hath Endeavoured To Subdue Us, Is Of All Others, The Most Improper To Defend Us.

...thomas Did Not Believe The Resurrection [john 20:25], And, As They Say, Would Not Believe Without Having Ocular And Manual Demonstration Himself. So Neither Will I, And The Reason Is Equally As Good For Me, And For Every Other Person, As For Thomas.

I Die In Perfect Composure And Resignation To The Will Of My Creator, God.

The Creation Speaks A Universal Language, Independent Of Human Speech Or Human Language, Multiplied And Various As They Be. It Is An Ever-existing Original, Which Every Man Can Read. It Cannot Be Forged; It Cannot Be Counterfeited; It Cannot Be Lost; It Cannot Be Altered; It Cannot Be Suppressed. It Does Not Depend Upon The Will Of Man Whether It Shall Be Published Or Not; It Publishes Itself From One End Of The Earth To The Other. It Preaches To All Nations And To All Worlds; And This Word Of God Reveals To Man All That Is Necessary For Man To Know Of God.

The More Men Have To Lose, The Less Willing Are They To Venture.

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.

This New World Hath Been The Asylum For The Persecuted Lovers Of Civil And Religious Liberty From Every Part Of Europe. Hither Have They Fled, Not From The Tender Embraces Of The Mother, But From The Cruelty Of The Monster; And It Is So Far True Of England, That The Same Tyranny Which Drove The First Emigrants From Home, Pursues Their Descendants Still.

Europe, And Not England, Is The Parent Country Of America. This New World Hath Been The Asylum For The Persecuted Lovers Of Civil And Religious Liberty From Every Part Of Europe.

The Guilt Of A Government Is The Crime Of A Whole Country.

Nothing, They Say Is More Certain Than Death, And Nothing More Uncertain Than The Time Of Dying

Any System Of Religion That Has Anything In It That Shocks The Mind Of A Child, Cannot Be True.

Of All The Systems Of Religion That Ever Were Invented, There Is No More Derogatory To The Almighty, More Unedifying To Man, More Repugnant To Reason, And More Contradictory To Itself Than This Thing Called Christianity. Too Absurd For Belief, Too Impossible To Convince, And Too Inconsistent For Practice, It Renders The Heart Torpid Or Produces Only Atheists Or Fanatics. As An Engine Of Power, It Serves The Purpose Of Despotism, And As A Means Of Wealth, The Avarice Of Priests, But So Far As Respects The Good Of Man In General It Leads To Nothing Here Or Hereafter.

The Art Of Publicity Is A Black Art; But It Has Come To Stay, And Every Year Adds To Its Potency.

Heaven Knows How To Put A Proper Price Upon Its Goods. It Would Be Strange Indeed If So Celestial An Article As Freedom Should Not Be Highly Rated. Britain, With An Army To Enforce Her Tyranny, Has Declared That She Has A Right (not Only To Tax) But "to Bind Us In All Cases Whatsoever," And If Being Bound In That Manner, Is Not Slavery, Then Is There Not Such A Thing As Slavery Upon Earth. Even The Expression Is Impious, For So Unlimited A Power Can Belong Only To God.

The Artificial Noble Shrinks Into A Dwarf Before The Noble Of Nature; And In The Few Instances (for There Are Some In All Countries) In Whom Nature, As By A Miracle, Has Survived In Aristocracy, Those Men Despise It.

We Can Only Reason From What Is; We Can Reason On Actualities, But Not On Possibilities.

Some People Can Be Reasoned Into Sense, And Others Must Be Shocked Into It.

The Animals To Whom Nature Has Given The Faculty We Call Cunning Know Always When To Use It, And Use It Wisely; But When Man Descends To Cunning He Blunders And Betrays.

We Do Not Admit The Authority Of The Church With Respect To Its Pretended Infallibility, Its Manufactured Miracles, Its Setting Itself Up To Forgive Sins. It Was By Propagating That Belief And Supporting It With Fire That She Kept Up Her Temporal Power.

When An Objection Cannot Be Made Formidable, There Is Some Policy In Trying To Make It Frightful; And To Substitute The Yell And The War-whoop, In The Place Of Reason, Argument And Good Order.

Before Anything Can Be Reasoned Upon To A Conclusion, Certain Facts, Principles, Or Data, To Reason From, Must Be Established, Admitted, Or Denied.

Society Is Produced By Our Wants, And Government By Wickedness; The Former Promotes Our Happiness Positively By Uniting Our Affections, The Latter Negatively By Restraining Our Vices. The One Encourages Intercourse, The Other Creates Distinctions. The First Is A Patron, The Last A Punisher.

To Believe That God Created A Plurality Of Worlds, At Least As Numerous As What We Call Stars, Renders The Christian Faith At Once Little And Ridiculous; And Scatters It In The Mind Like Feathers In The Air.

Let Them Call Me Rebel, And Welcome, I Feel No Concern From It.

It Is The Object Only Of War That Makes It Honorable.

War Ought To Be No Man's Wish.

And As A Man, Who Is Attached To A Prostitute, Is Unfitted To Choose Or Judge Of A Wife, So Any Prepossession In Favour Of A Rotten Constitution Of Government Will Disable Us From Discerning A Good One.

Prejudice Will Fall In A Combat With Interest.

The Balance Of Power Is The Scale Of Peace. The Same Balance Would Be Preserved Were All The World Not Destitute Of Arms, For All Would Be Alike; But Since Some Will Not, Others Dare Not Lay Them Aside ... Horrid Mischief Would Ensue Were One Half The World Deprived Of The Use Of Them ... The Weak Will Become Prey To The Strong.

I Have Never Made It A Consideration Whether The Subject Was Popular Or Unpopular, But Whether It Was Right Or Wrong; For That Which Is Right Will Become Popular, And That Which Is Wrong, Though By Mistake It May Obtain The Cry Or Fashion Of The Day, Will Soon Lose The Power Of Delusion, And Sink Into Disesteem.

If, To Expose The Fraud And Imposition Of Monarchy . . . To Promote Universal Peace, Civilization, And Commerce, And To Break The Chains Of Political Superstition, And Raise Degraded Man To His Proper Rank; If These Things Be Libellous . . . Let The Name Of Libeller Be Engraved On My Tomb

Persecution Is Not An Original Feature In Any Religion; But It Is Always The Strongly Marked Feature Of All Religions Established By Law.

Society Is Produced By Our Wants And Government By Our Wickedness.

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