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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.

-Thomas Paine

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The Nearer Any Disease

Thomas Paine

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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.

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War Ought To Be No Man's Wish.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Ah, Reader, Put Thy Trust In Thy Creator, And Thou Wilt Be Safe; But If Thou Trustest To The Book Called The Scriptures Thou Trustest To The Rotten Staff Of Fable And Falsehood.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

The Nt, Compared With The Old, Is Like A Farce Of One Act.

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.

When Authors And Critics Talk Of The Sublime, They See Not How Nearly It Borders On The Ridiculous.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Panics, In Some Cases, Have Their Uses; They Produce As Much Good As Hurt. Their Duration Is Always Short; The Mind Soon Grows Through Them And Acquires A Firmer Habit Than Before. But Their Peculiar Advantage Is, That They Are The Touchstone Of Sincerity And Hypocrisy, And Bring Things And Men To Light, Which Might Have Lain Forever Undiscovered.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Everything That Is Right Or Reasonable Pleads For Separation. The Blood Of The Slain, The Weeping Voice Of Nature Cries, 'tis Time To Part.

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.

How Necessary It Is At All Times To Watch Against The Attempted Encroachment Of Power, And To Prevent Its Running To Excess.

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.

Customs Will Often Outlive The Remembrance Of Their Origin.

Positive Atheism

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.

What We Obtain Too Cheap, We Esteem Too Lightly: It Is Dearness Only That Gives Every Thing Its Value. Heaven Knows How To Put A Proper Price Upon Its Goods; And It Would Be Strange Indeed If So Celestial An Article As Freedom Should Not Be Highly Rated.

When It Becomes Necessary To Do A Thing, The Whole Heart And Soul Should Go Into The Measure, Or Not Attempt It.

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.

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

Natural Rights Are Those Which Always Appertain To Man In Right Of His Existence. Of This Kind Are All The Intellectual Rights, Or Rights Of The Mind, And Also All Those Rights Of Acting As An Individual For His Own Comfort And Happiness, Which Are Not Injurious To The Rights Of Others.

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.

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.

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.

Time Makes More Converts Than Reason.

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.

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.

Belief In A Cruel God Makes A Cruel Man.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Compassion, The Fairest Associate Of The Heart.

What Is Called A Republic, Is Not Any Particular Form Of Government ... It Is Naturally Opposed To The Word Monarchy, Which Means Arbitrary Power.

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

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.

A Man May Write Himself Out Of Reputation When Nobody Else Can Do It.

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

It Is Error Only, And Not Truth, That Shrinks From Inquiry.

All National Institutions Of Churches, Whether Jewish, Christian Or Turkish, Appear To Me No Other Than Human Inventions, Set Up To Terrify And Enslave Mankind, And Monopolize Power And Profit.

Where Knowledge Is A Duty, Ignorance Is A Crime.

We Still Find The Greedy Hand Of Government Thrusting Itself Into Every Corner And Crevice Of Industry And Grasping At The Spoil Of The Multitude. Invention Is Continually Exercised To Furnish New Pretenses For Revenue And Taxation. It Watches Prosperity As Its Prey And Permits None To Escape Without A Tribute.

Public Credit Is Suspicion Asleep.

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.

Man Must Go Back To Nature For Information.

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

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.

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.

Human Language Is Local And Changeable, And Is Therefore Incapable Of Being Used As The Means Of Unchangeable And Universal Information.

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

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.

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

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

Character Is Much Easier Kept Than Recovered.

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

I Do Not Believe In The Creed Professed By The Jewish Church, By The Roman Church, By The Greek Church, By The Turkish Church, By The Protestant Church, Nor By Any Church That I Know Of. My Own Mind Is My Own Church.

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.

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

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

It Is From The Bible That Man Has Learned Cruelty, Rapine, And Murder; For The Belief Of A Cruel God Makes A Cruel Man.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

In Deism Our Reason And Our Belief Are Happily United.

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

America Could Carry On A Two Years' War By The Confiscation Of The Property Of Disaffected Persons, And Be Made Happy By Their Expulsion. Say Not That This Is Revenge, Call It Rather The Soft Resentment Of A Suffering People, Who, Having No Object In View But The Good Of All, Have Staked Their Own All Upon A Seemingly Doubtful Event. Yet It Is Folly To Argue Against Determined Hardness; Eloquence May Strike The Ear, And The Language Of Sorrow Draw Forth The Tear Of Compassion, But Nothing Can Reach The Heart That Is Steeled With Prejudice.

Whatever Is My Right As A Man Is Also The Right Of Another; And It Becomes My Duty To Guarantee As Well As To Possess.

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 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.

Suspicion And Persecution Are Weeds Of The Same Dunghill, And Flourish Best Together.

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.

You Cannot Undermine Police Authority And Then Complain About Rising Crime.

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.

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

[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.

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.

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.

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

These Are The Days That Try Man's Heart.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

The Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph.

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 New Testament Rests Itself For Credulity And Testimony On What Are Called Prophecies In The Old Testament, Of The Person Called Jesus Christ; And If There Are No Such Things As Prophecies Of Any Such Person In The Old Testament, The New Testament.

The Age Of Ignorance Commenced With The Christian System.

Society In Every State Is A Blessing, But Government Even In Its Best State Is But A Necessary Evil; In Its Worst State An Intolerable One; For When We Suffer, Or Are Exposed To The Same Miseries By A Government, Which We Might Expect In A Country Without Government, Our Calamity Is Heightened By Reflecting That We Furnish The Means By Which We Suffer.

It Is Not A Charity But A Right, Not Bounty But Justice, That I Am Pleading For. The Present State Of Civilization Is As Odious As It Is Unjust. It Is Absolutely The Opposite Of What It Should Be, And It Is Necessary That A Revolution Should Be Made In It. The Contrast Of Affluence And Wretchedness Continually Meeting And Offending The Eye, Is Like Dead And Living Bodies Chained Together

My Country Is Wherever Liberty Lives.

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

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

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?

That There Are Men In All Countries Who Get Their Living By War, And By Keeping Up The Quarrels Of Nations, Is As Shocking As It Is True; But When Those Who Are Concerned In The Government Of A Country, Make It Their Study To Sow Discord And Cultivate Predjudices Between Nations, It Becomes The More Unpardonable.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Government Is A Necessary Evil

Whence Arose All The Horrid Assassinations Of Whole Nations Of Men, Women, And Infants, With Which The Bible Is Filled; And The Bloody Persecutions, And Tortures Unto Death, And Religiosu Wars, That Since That Time Have Laid Europe In Blood And Ashes; Whence Arose They, But From This Impious Thing Called Religion, And This Monstrous Belief That God Has Spoken To Man?

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.

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 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.

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.

Public Money Ought To Be Touched With The Most Scrupulous Consciousness Of Honor.

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!

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.

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.

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

Those Who Expect To Reap The Blessings Of Freedom Must, Like Men, Undergo The Fatigue Of Supporting It.

The First Was A Government Of Priestcraft, The Second Of Conquerors, And The Third Of Reason.

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.

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.

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.

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.

From Whence, Then, Could Arise The Solitary And Strange Conceit That The Almighty, Who Had Millions Of Worlds Equally Dependant On His Protection, Should Quit The Care Of All The Rest, And Come To Die In Our World, Because, They Say, One Man And One Woman Had Eaten An Apple?

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

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

The Mind Once Enlightened Cannot Again Become Dark.

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

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

When All Other Rights Are Taken Away, The Right Of Rebellion Is Made Perfect.

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.

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.

Government Is Best Which Governs Least

Democracies Have

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

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 Balance Of Power Is The Scale Of Peace.

Second Amendment

There Are Two Distinct Classes Of Men - Those Who Pay Taxes And Those Who Receive And Live Upon Taxes.

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.

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

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.

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.

It Has Been The Error Of The Schools To Teach Astronomy, And All The Other Sciences, And Subjects Of Natural Philosophy, As Accomplishments Only; Whereas They Should Be Taught Theologically, Or With Reference To The Being Who Is The Author Of Them: For All The Principles Of Science Are Of Divine Origin. Man Cannot Make, Or Invent, Or Contrive Principles: He Can Only Discover Them; And He Ought To Look Through The Discovery To The Author.

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

Founding Fathers Atheist

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Only Idea Man Can Affix To The Name Of God, Is That Of A First Cause, The Cause Of All Things. And, Incomprehensibly Difficult As It Is For A Man To Conceive What A First Cause Is, He Arrives At The Belief Of It, From The Tenfold Greater Difficulty Of Disbelieving It. It Is Difficult Beyond Description To Conceive That Space Can Have No End; But It Is More Difficult To Conceive An End. It Is Difficult Beyond The Power Of Man To Conceive An Eternal Duration Of What We Call Time; But It Is More Impossible To Conceive A Time When There Shall Be No Time.

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.

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

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

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

Practical Religion Consists In Doing Good: And The Only Way Of Serving God Is That Of Endeavoring To Make His Creation Happy. All Preaching That Has Not This For Its Object Is Nonsense And Hypocrisy.

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

Let A Crown Be Placed Thereon, By Which The World May Know, That So Far As We Approve Of Monarcy, That In America The Law Is King. For As In Absolute Governments The King Is Law, So In Free Countries The Law Ought To Be King; And There Ought To Be No Other.

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

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.

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