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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.

-Thomas Paine

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Reason And Ignorance, The

Thomas Paine

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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.

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The Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph.

As To The Book Called The Bible, It Is Blasphemy To Call It The Word Of God. It Is A Book Of Lies And Contradictions And A History Of Bad Times And Bad Men.

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.

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

Government, Like Dress, Is The Badge Of Lost Innocence; The Palaces Of Kings Are Built On The Ruins Of The Bowers Of Paradise.

In The Progress Of Politics, As In The Common Occurrences Of Life, We Are Not Only Apt To Forget The Ground We Have Travelled Over, But Frequently Neglect To Gather Up Experiences As We Go.

Whenever We Read The Obscene Stories, The Voluptuous Debaucheries, The Cruel And Tortuous Executions, The Unrelenting Vindictiveness With Which More Than Half The Bible Is Filled, It Would Be More Consistent That We Call It The Word Of A Demon Than The Word Of God. It Is A History Of Wickedness That Has Served To Corrupt And Brutalize Humankind.

Each Government Accuses The Other Of Perfidy, Intrigue And Ambition, As A Means Of Heating The Imagination Of Their Respective Nations, And Incensing Them To Hostilities. Man Is Not The Enemy Of Man, But Through The Medium Of A False System Of Government.

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

Each Of Those Churches Shows Certain Books, Which They Call Revelation, Or The Word Of God. The Jews Say That Their Word Of God Was Given By God To Moses Face To Face; The Christians Say, That Their Word Of God Came By Divine Inspiration; And The Turks Say, That Their Word Of God (the Koran) Was Brought By An Angel From Heaven. Each Of Those Churches Accuses The Other Of Unbelief; And, For My Own Part, I Disbelieve Them All.

Those Words, Temperate And Moderate, Are Words Either Of Political Cowardice, Or Of Cunning, Or Seduction. A Thing, Moderately Good Is Not So Good As It Ought To Be. Moderation In Temper, Is Always A Virtue; But Moderation In Principle, Is A Species Of Vice.

The Christian System Of Religion Is An Outrage On Common Sense.

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.

Government Is Best Which Governs Least

Democracies Have

The Slavery Of Fear Had Made Men Afraid To Think.

If There Must Be Trouble, Let It Be In My Day, That My Child May Have Peace.

Money, When Considered As The Fruit Of Many Years' Industry, As The Reward Of Labor, Sweat And Toil, As The Widow's Dowry And Children's Portion, And As The Means Of Procuring The Necessaries And Alleviating The Afflictions Of Life, And Making Old Age A Scene Of Rest, Has Something In It Sacred That Is Not To Be Sported With, Or Trusted To The Airy Bubble Of Paper Currency.

Death Is Not The Monarch For The Dead, But Of The Dying. The Moment He Obtains A Conquest He Loses A Subject.

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.

There Are Matters In The Bible, Said To Be Done By The Express Commandment Of God, That Are Shocking To Humanity And To Every Idea We Have Of Moral Justice.

His [jesus'] Historians, Having Brought Him Into The World In A Supernatural Manner, Were Obliged To Take Him Out Again In The Same Manner, Or The First Part Of The Story Must Have Fallen To The Ground.

These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls.

The Age Of Ignorance Commenced With The Christian System.

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.

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

The People Of America Are A People Of Property; Almost Every Man Is A Freeholder.

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.

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 Declaration Which Says That God Visits The Sins Of The Fathers Upon The Children Is Contrary To Every Principle Of Moral Justice.

[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.

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.

We Fight Not To Enslave, But To Set A Country Free, And To Make Room Upon The Earth For Honest Men To Live In.

When The Rich Plunder The Poor Of His Rights, It Becomes An Example For The Poor To Plunder The Rich Of His Property, For The Rights Of The One Are As Much Property To Him As Wealth Is Property To The Other, And The Little All Is As Dear As The Much. It Is Only By Setting Out On Just Principles That Men Are Trained To Be Just To Each Other; And It Will Always Be Found, That When The Rich Protect The Rights Of The Poor, The Poor Will Protect The Property Of The Rich. But The Guarantee, To Be Effectual, Must Be Parliamentarily Reciprocal.

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.

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.

Every Religion Is Good That Teaches Man To Be Good; And I Know Of None That Instructs Him To Be Bad.

The Bible Is A Book That Has Been Read More And Examined Less Than Any Book That Ever Existed.

Freedom Had Been Hunted Round The Globe; Reason Was Considered As Rebellion; And The Slavery Of Fear Had Made Men Afraid To Think. But Such Is The Irresistible Nature Of Truth, That All It Asks, And All It Wants, Is The Liberty Of Appearing.

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

The Mind, In Discovering Truths, Acts In The Same Manner As It Acts Through The Eye In Discovering Objects; When Once Any Object Has Been Seen, It Is Impossible To Put The Mind Back To The Same Condition It Was In Before It Saw It.

When I See Throughout This Book, Called The Bible, A History Of The Grossest Vices And A Collection Of The Most Paltry And Contemptible Tales And Stories, I Could Not So Dishonor My Creator By Calling It By His Name.

It Is Easy To See That When Republican Virtue Fails, Slavery Ensues.

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.

There Is A Happiness In Deism, When Rightly Understood, That Is Not To Be Found Inany Other System Of Religion. All Other Systems Have Something In Them That Either Shock Our Reason, Or Are Repugnant To It, And Man, If He Thinks At All, Must Stifle His Reason In Order To Force Himself To Believe Them.

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.

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.

The Sublime And The Ridiculous Are Often So Nearly Related, That It Is Difficult To Class Them Separately. One Step Above The Sublime Makes The Ridiculous, And One Step Above The Ridiculous Makes The Sublime Again.

If Those To Whom Power Is Delegated Do Well, They Will Be Respected; If Not, They Will Be Despised.

Never, I Say, Had A Country So Many Openings To Happiness As This.... Her Cause Was Good. Her Principles Just And Liberal. Her Temper Serene And Firm.... The Remembrance Then Of What Is Past, If It Operates Rightly Must Inspire Her With The Most Laudable Of An Ambition, That Of Adding To The Fair Fame She Began With. The World Has Seen Her Great Adversity.... Let Then, The World See That She Can Bear Prosperity; And That Her Honest Virtue In Time Of Peace Is Equal To The Bravest Virtue In Time Of War.

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.

I Bring Reason To Your Ears, And, In Language As Plain As Abc, Hold Up Truth To Your Eyes.

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

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

Mystery Is The Antagonist Of Truth. It Is A Fog Of Human Invention, That Obscures Truth, And Represents It In Distortion.

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

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.

To Argue With A Person Who Has Renounced The Use Of Reason Is Like Administering Medicine To The Dead.

No Falsehood Is So Fatal As That Which Is Made An Article Of Faith.

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 Most Extraordinary Of All The Things Called Miracles, Related In The New Testament, Is That Of The Devil Flying Away With Jesus Christ, And Carrying Him To The Top Of A High Mountain; And To The Top Of The Highest Pinnacle Of The Temple, And Showing Him And Promising To Him All The Kingdoms Of The World . How Happened It That He Did Not Discover America? Or Is It Only With Kingdoms That His Sooty Highness Has Any Interest.

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

Priests And Conjurors Are Of The Same Trade.

The Protection Of A Man's Person Is More Sacred Than The Protection Of His Property.

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.

We Must Be Compelled To Hold This Doctrine To Be False, And The Old And New Law Called The Old And New Testament, To Be Impositions, Fables And Forgeries.

Calumny Is A Vice Of Curious Constitution; Trying To Kill It Keeps It Alive; Leave It To Itself And It Will Die A Natural Death.

Time Makes More Converts Than Reason.

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.

To Bring The Matter To One Point, Is The Power Who Is Jealous Of Our Prosperity, A Proper Power To Govern Us? Whoever Says, No, To This Question, Is An Independent, For Independency Means No More Than This, Whether We Shall Make Our Own Law, Or, Whether The King, The Greatest Enemy Which This Continent Hath, Or Can Have, Shall Tell Us There Shall Be No Laws But Such As I Like.

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

Representatives

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

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

To Live With Our Enemies As If They May Some Time Become Our Friends, And To Live With Our Friends As If They May Some Time Become Our Enemies, Is Not A Moral But A Political Maxim

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

It Is Necessary To The Happiness Of Man That He Be Mentally Faithful To Himself. Infidelity Does Not Consist In Believing, Or In Disbelieving, It Consists In Professing To Believe What He Does Not Believe.

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.

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.

To Say That Any People Are Not Fit For Freedom, Is To Make Poverty Their Choice, And To Say They Had Rather Be Loaded With Taxes Than Not.

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

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

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.

Is It More Probable That Nature Should Go Out Of Her Course, Or That A Man Should Tell A Lie? We Have Never Seen, In Our Time, Nature Go Out Of Her Course; But We Have Good Reason To Believe That Millions Of Lies Have Been Told In The Same Time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What We Obtain Too Cheap, We Esteem Too Lightly; It Is Dearness Only That Gives Everything Its Value.

A Constitution Is Not The Act Of A Government, But Of A People Constituting A Government, And A Government Without A Constitution Is A Power Without Right.

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.

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.

Nothing But Heaven Is Impregnable To Vice.

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

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.

An Army Of Principles Will Penetrate Where An Army Of Soldiers Cannot.

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.

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.

Revelation Is Necessarily Limited To The First Communication- After That It Is Only An Account Of Something Which That Person Says Was A Revelation Made To Him; And Though He May Find Himself Obliged To Believe It, It Can Not Be Incumbent On Me To Believe It In The Same Manner; For It Was Not A Revelation Made To Me, And I Have Only His Word For It That It Was Made To Him.

The Most Detestable Wickedness, The Most Horrid Cruelties, And The Greatest Miseries, That Have Afflicted The Human Race Have Had Their Origin In This Thing Called Revelation, Or Revealed Religion.

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

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.

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.

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

Man Must Go Back To Nature For Information.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Beware The Greedy Hand Of Government Thrusting Itself Into Every Corner And Crevice Of Industry.

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.

A Government On The Principles On Which Constitutional Governments Arising Out Of Society Are Established, Cannot Have The Right Of Altering Itself. If It Had, It Would Be Arbitrary. It Might Make Itself What It Pleased; And Wherever Such A Right Is Set Up, It Shows There Is No Constitution.

I Detest The Bible As I Detest Everything That Is Cruel.

I Prefer Peace. But If Trouble Must Come, Let It Come In My Time, So That My Children Can Live In Peace.

It Is Far Better That We Admitted A Thousand Devils To Roam At Large Than That We Permitted One Such Imposter And Monster As Moses, Joshua, Samuel, And The Bible Prophets, To Come With The Pretended Word Of God And Have Credit Among Us.

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.

Commerce Diminishes The Spirit, Both Of Patriotism And Military Defence.

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.

The Most Formidable Weapon Against Errors Of Every Kind Is Reason.

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

The Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph. I Love The Man That Can Smile In Trouble, That Can Gather Strength From Distress And Grow.

'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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

From The East To The West Blow The Trumpet To Arms! Through The Land Let The Sound Of It Flee; Let The Far And The Near All Unite, With A Cheer, In Defense Of Our Liberty Tree.

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 Is The Object Only Of War That Makes It Honorable.

Peace, Which Costs Nothing, Is Attended With Infinitely More Advantage Than Any Victory With All Its Expence.

If There Was Ever A Just War Since The World Began, It Is This In Which America Is Now Engaged.

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

Small Islands, Not Capable Of Protecting Themselves, Are The Proper Objects For Kingdoms To Take Under Their Care; But There Is Something Absurd, In Supposing A Continent To Be Perpetually Governed By An Island.

When I Contemplate The Natural Dignity Of Man; When I Feel (for Nature Has Not Been Kind Enough To Me To Blunt My Feelings) For The Honor And Happiness Of Its Character, I Become Irritated At The Attempt To Govern Mankind By Force And Fraud, As If They Were All Knaves And Fools, And Can Scarcely Avoid Disgust At Those Who Are Thus Imposed Upon.

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.

When My Country, Into Which I Had Just Set My Foot, Was Set On Fire About My Ears, It Was Time To Stir. It Was Time For Every Man To Stir.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Titles Are But Nicknames, And Every Nickname Is A Title. The Thing Is Perfectly Harmless In Itself, But It Marks A Sort Of Foppery In The Human Character, Which Degrades It.

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.

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.

We Repose An Unwise Confidence In Any Government, Or In Any Men, When We Invest Them Officially With Too Much, Or An Unnecessary Quantity Of, Discretionary Power.

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.

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.

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.

I Fear Not, I See Not Reason For Fear. In The End We Will Be The Victors. For Though At Times The Flame Of Liberty May Cease To Shine, The Ember Will Never Expire.

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?

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

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.

Change Of Ministers Amounts To Nothing. One Goes Out, Another Comes In, And Still The Same Measures, Vices, And Extravagances Are Pursued. It Signifies Not Who Is Minister. The Defect Lies In The System. The Foundation And Superstructure Of The Government Is Bad. Prop It As You Please, It Continually Sinks And Ever Will.

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.

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

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

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

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.

In Deism Our Reason And Our Belief Become Happily United. The Wonderful Structure Of The Universe, And Everything We Behold In The System Of The Creation, Prove To Us, Far Better Than Books Can Do, The Existence Of A God, And At The Same Time Proclaim His Attributes.

The Sun Never Shined On A Cause Of Greater Worth.

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.

Virtues Are Acquired Through Endeavor, Which Rests Wholly Upon Yourself. So, To Praise Others For Their Virtues Can But Encourage One's Own Efforts.

The Instant Formal Government Is Abolished, Society Begins To Act. A General Association Takes Place, And Common Interest Produces Common Security.

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

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.

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

To Argue With A Man Who Has Renounced The Use And Authority Of Reason, And Whose Philosophy Consists In Holding Humanity In Contempt, Is Like Administering Medicine To The Dead, Or Endeavoring To Convert An Atheist By Scripture.

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

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

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

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.

Every Proprietor Owes To The Community A Ground-rent For The Land Which He Holds.

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.

It Is An Affront To Treat Falsehood With Complaisance.

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.

Every Age And Generation Must Be As Free To Act For Itself.

What More Does Man Want To Know Than That The Hand Or Power That Made These Things Is Divine, Is Omnipotent? Let Him Believe This With The Force It Is Impossible To Repel, If He Permits His Reason To Act, And His Rule Of Moral Life Will Follow Of Course.

The Christian Religion Is Derogatory To The Creator In All Its Articles. It Puts The Creator In An Inferior Point Of View, And Places The Christian Devil Above Him. It Is He, According To The Absurd Story In Genesis, That Outwits The Creator In The Garden Eden, And Steals From Him His Favorite Creature, Man, And At Last Obliges Him To Beget A Son, And Put That Son To Death, To Get Man Back Again; And This The Priests Of The Christian Religion Call Redemption.

Belief In A Cruel God Makes A Cruel Man.

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

Founding Fathers Religion

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

It Is Unnatural That A Pure Stream Should Flow From A Foul Fountain Its Vices Are But A Continuation Of The Vices Of Its Origin. A Man Of Moral Honor And Good Political Principles, Cannot Submit To The Mean Drudgery And Disgraceful Arts, By Which Such Elections Are Carried. To Be A Successful Candidate, He Must Be Destitute Of The Qualities That Constitute A Just Legislator: And Being Thus Disciplined To Corruption It Is Not To Be Expected That The Representative Should Be Better Than The Man.

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.

The More We Bestow The Richer We Become.

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.

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

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

Man Cannot Make, Or Invent, Or Contrive Principles; He Can Only Discover Them; And He Ought To Look Through The Discovery To The Author.

No Man Is Prejudiced In Favor 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.

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

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

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.

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.

A Share In Two Revolutions Is Living To Some Purpose.

Yet This Is Trash That The Church Imposes Upon The World As The Word Of God; This Is The Collection Of Lies And Contradictions Called The Holy Bible! This Is The Rubbish Called Revealed Religion!

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

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