Background Image

...

In A General View, There Are Few Conquests That Repay The Charge Of Making Them, And Mankind Are Pretty Well Convinced That It Can Never Be Worth Their While To Go To War For Profit's Sake. If They Are Made War Upon, Their Country Invaded, Or Their Existence At Stake, It Is Their Duty To Defend And Preserve Themselves, But In Every Other Light, And From Every Other Cause, Is War Inglorious And Detestable.

-Thomas Paine

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

In A General View,

Thomas Paine

...

In A General View, There Are Few Conquests That Repay The Charge Of Making Them, And Mankind Are Pretty Well Convinced That It Can Never Be Worth Their While To Go To War For Profit's Sake. If They Are Made War Upon, Their Country Invaded, Or Their Existence At Stake, It Is Their Duty To Defend And Preserve Themselves, But In Every Other Light, And From Every Other Cause, Is War Inglorious And Detestable.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Thomas Paine

But Where, Says Some, Is The King Of America? I'll Tell You. Friend, He Reigns Above, And Doth Not Make Havoc Of Mankind Like The Royal Brute Of Britain.

A Constitution Is Not The Act Of A Government, But Of A People Constituting A Government; And Government Without A Constitution Is Power Without A Right. All Power Exercised Over A Nation, Must Have Some Beginning. It Must Be Either Delegated, Or Assumed. There Are Not Other Sources. All Delegated Power Is Trust, And All Assumed Power Is Usurpation. Time Does Not Alter The Nature And Quality Of Either.

It Is A Fool Only, And Not The Philosopher, Nor Even The Prudent Man, That Will Live As If There Were No God... Were A Man Impressed As Fully And Strongly As He Ought To Be With The Belief Of A God, His Moral Life Would Be Regulated By The Force Of Belief; He Would Stand In Awe Of God And Of Himself, And Would Not Do The Thing That Could Not Be Concealed From Either.

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.

All The Tales Of Miracles, With Which The Old And New Testament Are Filled, Are Fit Only For Impostors To Preach And Fools To Believe.

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.

Every Tory Is A Coward; For Servile, Slavish, Self-interested Fear Is The Foundation Of Toryism; And A Man Under Such Influence, Though He May Be Cruel, Never Can Be Brave.

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.

Government Is Best Which Governs Least

Democracies Have

...the Bible Is Such A Book Of Lies And Contradictions There Is No Knowing Which Part To Believe Or Whether Any.

Immediate Necessity Makes Many Things Convenient, Which If Continued Would Grow Into Oppressions.

Character Is Much Easier Kept Than Recovered.

A Constitution, Therefore, Is To A Government What The Laws Made Afterwards By That Government Are To A Court Of Judicature. The Court Of Judicature Does Not Make The Laws, Neither Can It Alter Them; It Only Acts In Conformity To The Laws Made: And The Government Is In Like Manner Governed By The Constitution.

A Share In Two Revolutions Is Living To Some Purpose.

Uncritical Reverence For The Founding Fathers Was Less Ubiquitous While They Actually Lived. . . . "the Reign Of Terror That Raged In America During The Latter End Of The Washington Administration, And The Whole Of That Of Adams, Is Enveloped In Mystery To Me. That There Were Men In The Government Hostile To The Representative System, Was Once Their Toast, Though It Is Now Their Overthrow, And Therefore The Fact Is Established Against Them."

The Age Of Ignorance Commenced With The Christian System.

From Such Beginnings Of Governments, What Could Be Expected, But A Continual System Of War And Extortion?

The Reformation Was Preceded By The Discovery Of America, As If The Almighty Graciously Meant To Open A Sanctuary To The Persecuted In Future Years, When Home Should Afford Neither Friendship Nor Safety.

In The Following Pages I Offer Nothing More Than Simple Facts, Plain Arguments, And Common Sense; And Have No Other Preliminaries To Settle With The Reader, Than That He Will Divest Himself Of Prejudice And Repossession, And Suffer His Reason And Feelings To Determine For Themselves; And That He Will Put On, Or Rather That He Will Not Put Off, The True Character Of Man, And Generously Enlarge His View Beyond The Present Day.

I Consider The War Of America Against Britain As The Country's War, The Public's War, Or The War Of The People In Their Own Behalf, For The Security Of Their Natural Rights, And The Protection Of Their Own Property.

I Die Content, I Die For The Liberty Of My Country.

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

People In General Know Not What Wickedness There Is In This Pretended Word Of God. Brought Up In Habits Of Superstition, They Take It For Granted That The Bible Is True, And That It Is Good; They Permit Themselves Not To Doubt Of It, And They Carry The Ideas They Form Of The Benevolence Of The Almighty To The Book Which They Have Been Taught To Believe Was Written By His Authority. Good Heavens! It Is Quite Another Thing; It Is A Book Of Lies, Wickedness, And Blasphemy.

If I Do Not Believe As You Believe, It Proves That You Do Not Believe As I Believe, And That Is All That It Proves.

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

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

It Has Been The Scheme Of The Christian Church, And Of All The Other Invented Systems Of Religion, To Hold Man In Ignorance Of The Creator, As It Is Of Government To Hold Man In Ignorance Of His Rights. The Systems Of The One Are As False As Those Of The Other, And Are Calculated For Mutual Support.

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.

It Is Not A Field Of A Few Acres Of Ground, But A Cause, That We Are Defending, And Whether We Defeat The Enemy In One Battle, Or By Degrees, The Consequences Will Be The Same.

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 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?

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

These Are The Days That Try Man's Heart.

It Is With A Pious Fraud As With A Bad Action; It Begets A Calamitous Necessity Of Going On.

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

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.

In The First Part Of 'rights Of Man' I Have Endeavoured To Show...that There Does Not Exist A Right To Establish Hereditary Government...because Hereditary Government Always Means A Government Yet To Come, And The Case Always Is, That The People Who Are To Live Afterwards, Have Always The Same Right To Choose A Government For Themselves, As The People Had Who Have Lived Before Them.

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.

Paper Money Is Like Dram-drinking, It Relieves For A Moment By Deceitful Sensation, But Gradually Diminishes The Natural Heat, And Leaves The Body Worse Than It Found It. Were Not This The Case, And Could Money Be Made Of Paper At Pleasure, Every Sovereign In Europe Would Be As Rich As He Pleased. But The Truth Is, That It Is A Bubble And The Attempt Vanity. Nature Has Provided The Proper Materials For Money: Gold And Silver, And Any Attempt Of Ours To Rival Her Is Ridiculous.

Universal Empire Is The Prerogative Of A Writer. His Concerns Are With All Mankind, And Though He Cannot Command Their Obedience,he Can Assign Them Their Duty. The Republic Of Letters Is More Ancient Than Monarchy, And Of Far Higher Character In The World Than The Vassal Court Of Britain.

I Have Always Strenuously Supported The Right Of Every Man To His Own Opinion, However Different That Opinion Might Be To Mine. He Who Denies To Another This Right, Makes A Slave Of Himself To His Present Opinion, Because He Precludes Himself The Right Of Changing It.

The Vatican Is A Dagger In The Heart Of Italy.

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

It Is For The Good Of Nations, And Not For The Emolument Or Aggrandizement Of Particular Individuals, That Government Ought To Be Established, And That Mankind Are At The Expense Of Supporting It. The Defects Of Every Government And Constitution Both As To Principle And Form, Must, On A Parity Of Reasoning, Be As Open To Discussion As The Defects Of A Law, And It Is A Duty Which Every Man Owes To Society To Point Them Out.

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

But Though Every Created Thing Is, In This Sense, A Mystery, The Word Mystery Cannot Be Applied To Moral Truth, Any More Than Obscurity Can Be Applied To Light. ... Mystery Is The Antagonist Of Truth. It Is A Fog Of Human Invention, That Obscures Truth, And Represents It In Distortion. 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.

But If Objects For Gratitude And Admiration Are Our Desire, Do They Not Present Themselves Every Hour To Our Eyes?

For All Men Being Originally Equals, No One By Birth Could Have The Right To Set Up His Own Family In Perpetual Preference To All Others Forever, And Tho' Himself Might Deserve Some Decent Degree Of Honours Of His Cotemporaries, Yet His Descendants Might Be Far Too Unworthy To Inherit Them.

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.

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

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

Man Must Go Back To Nature For Information.

The Circumstances Of The World Are Continually Changing, And The Opinions Of Men Change Also; And As Government Is For The Living, And Not For The Dead, It Is The Living Only That Has Any Right In It. That Which May Be Thought Right And Found Convenient In One Age, May Be Thought Wrong And Found Inconvenient In Another. In Such Cases, Who Is To Decide, The Living, Or The Dead?

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

To Establish Any Mode To Abolish War, However Advantageous It Might Be To Nations, Would Be To Take From Such Government The Most Lucrative Of Its Branches.

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.

Where Knowledge Is A Duty, Ignorance Is A Crime.

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

We Hold The Moral Obligation Of Providing For Old Age, Helpless Infancy, And Poverty Is Far Superior To That Of Supplying The Invented Wants Of Courtly Extravagance.

A World Of Little Cares Is Continually Arising, Which Busy Or Affluent Life Knows Nothing Of, To Open The First Door To Distress. Hunger Is Not Among The Postponable Wants; And A Day, Even A Few Hours, In Such A Condition Is Often The Crisis Of A Life Of Ruin.

It Is Not Because A Part Of The Government Is Elective, That Makes It Less A Despotism, If The Persons So Elected, Possess Afterwards, As A Parliament, Unlimited Powers. Election, In This Case, Becomes Separated From Representation, And The Candidates Are Candidates For Despotism.

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

Representatives

The Fable Of Christ And His Twelve Apostles Is A Parody Of The Sun And The Twelve Signs Of The Zodiac, Copied From The Ancient Religions Of The Eastern World. Every Thing Told Of Christ Has Reference To The Sun. His Reported Resurrection Is At Sunrise, And That On The First Day Of The Week; That Is, On The Day Anciently Dedicated To The Sun, And From Thence Called Sunday.

...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.

If Any Generation Of Men Ever Possessed The Right Of Dictating The Mode By Which The World Should Be Governed For Ever, It Was The First Generation That Existed; And If That Generation Did It Not, No Succeeding Generation Can Show Any Authority For Doing It, Nor Can Set Any Up.

I Believe In One God, And No More; And I Hope For Happiness Beyond This Life.

Founding Fathers Atheist

Time Makes More Converts Than Reason.

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.

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.

It Will Be Proper To Take A Review Of The Several Sources From Which Governments Have Arisen, And On Which They Have Been Founded.

Arms, Like Laws, Discourage And Keep The Invader And Plunderer In Awe And Preserve Order.

Man Did Not Enter Society To Be Worse Off, Or To Have Fewer Rights, But Rather To Have Those Rights Better Secured

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

There Are A Set Of Men Who Go About Making Purchases Upon Credit, And Buying Estates They Have Not Wherewithal To Pay For; And Having Done This, Their Next Step Is To Fill The Newspapers With Paragraphs Of The Scarcity Of Money And The Necessity Of A Paper Emission, Then To Have A Legal Tender Under The Pretense Of Supporting Its Credit, And When Out, To Depreciate It As Fast As They Can, Get A Deal Of It For A Little Price, And Cheat Their Creditors; And This Is The Concise History Of Paper Money Schemes.

They Took Care To Represent Government As A Thing Made Up Of Mysteries, Which Only Themselves Understood, And They Hid From The Understanding Of The Nation, The Only Thing That Was Beneficial To Know, Namely, That Government Is Nothing More Than A National Association Acting On The Principles Of Society.

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.

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.

I Believe In One God, And No More; And I Hope For Happiness Beyond This Life. I Believe In The Equality Of Humans; And I Believe That Religious Duties Consist In Doing Justice, Loving Mercy, And Endeavoring To Make Our Fellow Creatures Happy.

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

...for Though The Flame Of Liberty May Sometimes Cease To Shine, The Coal Can Never Expire.

My Mind Is My Own Church.

It Is A Fraud Of The Christian System To Call The Sciences Human Invention; It Is Only The Application Of Them That Is Human.

Man Is Not The Enemy Of Man, But Through The Medium Of A False System Of Government. Instead, Therefore, Of Exclaiming Against The Ambition Of Kings, The Exclamation Should Be Directed Against The Principle Of Such Governments; And Instead Of Seeking To Reform The Individual, The Wisdom Of A Nation Should Apply Itself To Reform The System.

He, Who Survives His Reputation, Lives Out Of Despite Himself, Like A Man Listening To His Own Reproach.

The More We Bestow The Richer We Become.

Of All The Systems Of Religion That Ever Were Invented, There Is No More Derogatory To The Almighty, More Unedifiying To Man, More Repugnant To Reason, And More Contradictory To Itself Than This Thing Called Christianity.

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.

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

I Know Not Whether Taxes Are Raised To Fight Wars, Or Wars Are Fought In Order To Raise Taxes.

I Call Not Upon A Few, But Upon All: Not On This State Or That State, But On Every State; Up And Help Us; Lay Your Shoulders To The Wheel; Better Have Too Much Force Than Too Little, When So Great An Object Is At Stake.

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.

Aristocracy Is Kept Up By Family Tyranny And Injustice.

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.

An Avidity To Punish Is Always Dangerous To Liberty. It Leads Men To Stretch, To Misinterpret, And To Misapply Even The Best Of Laws.

There Is Something In Corruption Which, Like A Jaundiced Eye, Transfers The Color Of Itself To The Object It Looks Upon, And Sees Everything Stained And Impure.

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

Politics And Self-interest Have Been So Uniformly Connected, That The World, From Being So Often Deceived, Has A Right To Be Suspicious Of Public Characters.

When A Man Has So Far Corrupted And Prostituted The Chastity Of His Mind, As To [profess] Things He Does Not Believe, He Has Prepared Himself For The Commission Of Every Other Crime.

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.

Whatever Has A Tendency To Promote The Civil Intercourse Of Nations By An Exchange Of Benefits Is A Subject As Worthy Of Philosophy As Of Politics.

A Little Matter Will Move A Party, But It Must Be Something Great That Moves A Nation.

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

The Bible: A History Of Wickedness That Has Served To Corrupt And Brutalise Mankind.

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.

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.

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.

War Ought To Be No Man's Wish.

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

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

Virtue Is Not Hereditary.

What At First Was Plunder Assumed The Softer Name Of Revenue.

The Book Of Job And The 19th Psalm, Which Even The Church Admits To Be More Ancient Than The Chronological Order In Which They Stand In The Book Called The Bible, Are Theological Orations Conformable To The Original System Of Theology.

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.

When Extraordinary Power And Extraordinary Pay Are Allotted To Any Individual In A Government, He Becomes The Center, Round Which Every Kind Of Corruption Generates And Forms.

A Man Does Not Serve God When He Prays, For It Is Himself He Is Trying To Serve

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.

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.

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.

When The Tongue Or The Pen Is Let Loose In A Frenzy Of Passion, It Is The Man, And Not The Subject, That Becomes Exhausted.

As To The Christian System Of Faith, It Appears To Me As A Species Of Atheism — A Sort Of Religious Denial Of God. It Professes To Believe In A Man Rather Than In God. It Is A Compound Made Up Chiefly Of Manism With But Little Deism, And Is As Near To Atheism As Twilight Is To Darkness. It Introduces Between Man And His Maker An Opaque Body, Which It Calls A Redeemer, As The Moon Introduces Her Opaque Self Between The Earth And The Sun, And It Produces By This Means A Religious, Or An Irreligious, Eclipse Of Light. It Has Put The Whole Orbit Of Reason Into Shade.

If Anything Had Or Could Have A Value Equal To Gold And Silver, It Would Require No Tender Law; And If It Had Not That Value It Ought Not To Have Such A Law; And, Therefore, All Tender Laws Are Tyrannical And Unjust And Calculated To Support Fraud And Oppression.

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

The Abilities Of Man Must Fall Short On One Side Or The Other, Like Too Scanty A Blanket When You Are Abed. If You Pull It Upon Your Shoulders, Your Feet Are Left Bare; If You Thrust It Down To Your Feet, Your Shoulders Are Uncovered.

It Is Not In Numbers, But In Unity, That Our Great Strength Lies.

Could The Straggling Thoughts Of Individuals Be Collected, They Would Frequently Form Materials For Wise And Able Men To Improve Into Useful Matter.

Great Part Of That Order Which Reigns Among Mankind Is Not The Effect Of Government. It Has Its Origin In The Principles Of Society And The Natural Constitution Of Man. It Existed Prior To Government, And Would Exist If The Formality Of Government Was Abolished. The Mutual Dependence And Reciprocal Interest Which Man Has Upon Man, And All The Parts Of Civilised Community Upon Each Other, Create That Great Chain Of Connection Which Holds It Together.

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.

Commerce Is No Other Than The Traffic Of Two Individuals, Multiplied On A Scale Of Number; And, By The Same Rule That Nature Intended The Intercourse Of Two, She Intended That Of All!

To Be Nobly Wrong Is More Manly Than To Be Meanly Right.

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.

The Continually Progressive Change To Which The Meaning Of Words Is Subject, The Want Of A Universal Language Which Renders Translation Necessary, The Errors To Which Translations Are Again Subject, The Mistakes Of Copyists And Printers, Together With The Possibility Of Willful Alteration, Are Themselves Evidences That Human Language, Whether In Speech Or Print, Cannot Be The Vehicle Of The Word Of God.

Science Is The True Theology.

It Is A Position Not To Be Controverted, That The Earth ... Was And Ever Would Have Continued To Be, The Common Property Of The Human Race.

It Was Needless, After This, To Say That All Was Vanity And Vexation Of Spirit; For It Is Impossible To Derive Happiness From The Company Of Those Whom We Deprive Of Happiness.

If The Present Generation, Or Any Other, Are Disposed To Be Slaves, It Does Not Lessen The Right Of The Succeeding Generation To Be Free: Wrongs Cannot Have A Legal Descent.

Infidelity Does Not Consist In Believing, Or In Disbelieving; It Consists In Professing To Believe What He Does Not Believe. It Is Impossible To Calculate The Moral Mischief, If I May So Express It, That Mental Lying Has Produced In Society. When A Man Has So Far Corrupted And Prostituted The Chastity Of His Mind, As To Subscribe His Professional Belief To Things He Does Not Believe, He Has Prepared Himself For The Commission Of Every Other Crime.

Aristocracy Has A Tendency To Degenerate The Human Species.

The Story Of Jesus Christ Appearing After He Was Dead Is The Story Of An Apparition, Such As Timid Imaginations Can Always Create In Vision, And Credulity Believe. Stories Of This Kind Had Been Told Of The Assassination Of Julius Caesar.

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

Nothing But Heaven Is Impregnable To Vice.

Public Credit Is Suspicion Asleep.

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.

The Bill Of Rights Should Contain The General Principles Of Natural And Civil Liberty. It Should Be To A Community What The Eternal Laws And Obligations Of Morality Are To The Conscience. It Should Be Unalterable By Any Human Power.

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

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

Men Should Not Petition For Rights, But Take Them

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.

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

He Is Not Affected By The Reality Of Distress Touching His Heart, But By The Showy Resemblance Of It Striking His Imagination. He Pities The Plumage, But Forgets The Dying Bird.

The Slavery Of Fear Had Made Men Afraid To Think.

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

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 Men Yield Up The Privilege Of Thinking, The Last Shadow Of Liberty Quits The Horizon.

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.

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.

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.

Wisdom Is Not The Purchase Of A Day, And It Is No Wonder That We Should Err At The First Setting Off.

Now Is The Seedtime Of Continental Union, Faith And Honor. The Least Fracture Now, Will Be Like A Name Engraved With The Point Of A Pin On The Tender Rind Of A Young Oak; The Wound Would Enlarge With The Tree, And Posterity Read In It Full Grown Characters.

Compassion, The Fairest Associate Of The Heart.

Some Writers Have So Confounded Society With Government, As To Leave Little Or No Distinction Between Them; Whereas They Are Not Only Different, But Have Different Origins ... Society Is In Every State A Blessing, But Government, Even In Its Best State, Is But A Necessary Evil; In Its Worst State, An Intolerable One.

I Draw My Idea Of The Form Of Government From A Principle In Nature, Which No Art Can Overturn, Viz. That The More Simple Any Thing Is, The Less Liable It Is To Be Disordered; And The Easier Repaired When Disordered.

He Who Dares Not Offend Cannot Be Honest.

These Proceedings May At First Seem Strange And Difficult, But Like All Other Steps Which We Have Already Passed Over, Will In A Little Time Become Familiar And Agreeable: And Until An Independence Is Declared, The Continent Will Feel Itself Like A Man Who Continues Putting Off Some Unpleasant Business From Day To Day, Yet Knows It Must Be Done, Hates To Set About It, Wishes It Over, And Is Continually Haunted With The Thoughts Of Its Necessity.

Wisdom Degenerates In Governments As Governments Increase In Age.

The Duty Of Man Is Not A Wilderness Of Turnpike Gates, Through Which He Is To Pass By Tickets From One To The Other. It Is Plain And Simple, And Consists But Of Two Points--his Duty God, Which Every Man Must Feel; And, With Respect To His Neighbor, To Do As He Would Be Done By.

Where There Are No Distinctions There Can Be No Superiority; Perfect Equality Affords No Temptation.

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.

My Country Is The World, And My Religion Is To Do Good.

Government, Even In Its Best State, Is But A Necessary Evil; In Its Worst State, An Intolerable One.

He Who Is The Author Of A War Lets Loose The Whole Contagion Of Hell And Opens A Vein That Bleeds A Nation To Death.

The Choicest Gift Of God To Man, The Gift Of Reason; And Having Endeavoured To Force Upon Himself The Belief Of A System Against Which Reason Revolts, He Ungratefully Calls It Human Reason; As If Man Could Give Reason To Himself.

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.

The Grecians And Romans Were Strongly Possessed Of The Spirit Of Liberty But Not The Principle, For At The Time They Were Determined Not To Be Slaves Themselves, They Employed Their Power To Enslave The Rest Of Mankind.

The Whole Religious Complexion Of The Modern World Is Due To The Absence From Jerusalem Of A Lunatic Asylum.

The Countries The Most Famous And The Most Respected Of Antiquity Are Those Which Distinguished Themselves By Promoting And Patronizing Science, And On The Contrary Those Which Neglected Or Discouraged It Are Universally Denominated Rude And Barbarous.

Public Money Ought To Be Touched With The Most Scrupulous Conscientiousness Of Honor. It Is Not The Produce Of Riches Only, But Of The Hard Earnings Of Labor And Poverty. It Is Drawn Even From The Bitterness Of Want And Misery. Not A Beggar Passes, Or Perishes In The Streets, Whose Mite Is Not In That Mass.

There Is No Greater Tyranny Than That Of The Dead Over The Living.

As Property, Honestly Obtained, Is Best Secured By An Equality Of Rights, So Ill-gotten Property Depends For Protection On A Monopoly Of Rights. He Who Has Robbed Another Of His Property, Will Next Endeavor To Disarm Him Of His Rights, To Secure That Property; For When The Robber Becomes The Legislator He Believes Himself Secure.

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 Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph. What We Obtain Too Cheap, We Esteem Too Lightly; It Is Dearness Only That Gives Everything Its Value. I Love The Man That Can Smile In Trouble, That Can Gather Strength From Distress And Grow Brave By Reflection. '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.

Ignorance Is Of A Peculiar Nature; Once Dispelled, It Is Impossible To Reestablish It. It Is Not Originally A Thing Of Itself, But Is Only The Absence Of Knowledge; And Though Man May Be Kept Ignorant, He Cannot Be Made Ignorant.

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.

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

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

The Moral Duty Of Man Consists Of Imitating The Moral Goodness And Beneficence Of God, Manifested In The Creation Towards All His Creatures. Everything Of Persecution And Revenge Between Man And Man, And Everything Of Cruelty To Animals Is A Violation Of Moral Duty

The Nearer Any Disease Approaches To A Crisis, The Nearer It Is To A Cure. Danger And Deliverance Make Their Advances Together; And It Is Only In The Last Push That One Or The Other Takes The Lead.

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

The Cause Of America Is In Great Measure The Cause Of All Mankind.

The American Constitutions Were To Liberty, What A Grammar Is To Language: They Define Its Parts Of Speech, And Practically Construct Them Into Syntax

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.

As My Object Was Not Myself, I Set Out With The Determination, And Happily With The Disposition, Of Not Being Moved By Praise Or Censure, Friendship Or Calumny, Nor Of Being Drawn From My Purpose By Any Personal Altercation; And The Man Who Cannot Do This, Is Not Fit For A Public Character.

One Would Think That A System Loaded With Such Gross And Vulgar Absurdities As Scripture Religion Is Could Never Have Obtained Credit; Yet We Have Seen What Priestcraft And Fanaticism Can Do, And Credulity Believe.

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 Sun Never Shined On A Cause Of Greater Worth.

Accustom A People To Believe That Priests, Or Any Other Class Of Men Can Forgive Sins And You Will Have Sins In Abundance.

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.

But In Addition To All The Moral Evidence Against The Bible, I Will, In The Progress Of This Work, Produce Such Other Evidence As Even A Priest Cannot Deny; And Show, From That Evidence, That The Bible Is Not Entitled To Credit, As Being The Word Of God.

Christianity Is The Strangest Religion Ever Set Up, For It Committed A Murder Upon Jesus In Order To Redeem Mankind From The Sin Of Eating An Apple.

My Country Is Wherever Liberty Lives.

Human Nature Is Not Of Itself Vicious.

Trending Author

Alfred Eisenstaedt

Category