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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.

-Thomas Paine

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These Proceedings May At

Thomas Paine

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

We Have Every Opportunity And Every Encouragement Before Us, To Form The Noblest Truest Constitution On The Face Of The Earth. We Have It In Our Power To Begin The World Over Again.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Priests And Conjurors Are Of The Same Trade.

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.

The State Of A King Shuts Him From The World, Yet The Business Of A King Requires Him To Know It Thoroughly.

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

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

A Long Habit Of Not Thinking A Thing Wrong, Gives It A Superficial Appearance Of Being Right, And Raises At First A Formidable Outcry In Defense Of Custom. But The Tumult Soon Subsides. Time Makes More Converts Than Reason.

Let It Be Told To The Future World, That In The Depth Of Winter, When Nothing But Hope And Virtue Could Survive, The City And The Country, Alarmed At One Common Danger, Came Forth To Meet And To Repulse It.

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.

Call To Mind The Sentiments Which Nature Has Engraved On The Heart Of Every Citizen, And Which Take A New Force When They Are Solemnly Recognised By All:-for A Nation To Love Liberty, It Is Sufficient That She Knows It; And To Be Free, It Is Sufficient That She Wills It.

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.

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.

And When We View A Flag, Which To The Eye Is Beautiful, And To Contemplate Its Rise And Origin Inspires A Sensation Of Sublime Delight, Our National Honor Must Unite With Our Interests To Prevent Injury To The One, Or Insult To The Other.

Science Is The True Theology.

It Is Not A God, Just And Good, But A Devil, Under The Name Of God, That The Bible Describes.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Civil Rights Are Those Which Appertain To Man In Right Of His Being A Member Of Society. Every Civil Right Has For Its Foundation Some Natural Right Pre-existing In The Individual, But To The Enjoyment Of Which His Individual Power Is Not, In All Cases, Sufficiently Competent. Of This Kind Are All Those Which Relate To Security And Protection.

Individual Power

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

The Story Of The Redemption Will Not Stand Examination. That Man Should Redeem Himself From The Sin Of Eating An Apple By Committing A Murder On Jesus Christ, Is The Strangest System Of Religion Ever Set Up.

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.

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

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.

Prejudice Will Fall In A Combat With Interest.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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

Compassion, The Fairest Associate Of The Heart.

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 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.

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

Character Is Much Easier Kept Than Recovered.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Balance Of Power Is The Scale Of Peace.

Second Amendment

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.

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

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.

[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.

From The Errors Of Other Nations, Let Us Learn Wisdom.

Men Should Not Petition For Rights, But Take Them

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

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.

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

He That Would Make His Own Liberty Secure, Must Guard Even His Enemy From Oppression; For If He Violates This Duty, He Establishes A Precedent That Will Reach To Himself.

Government Is A Necessary Evil

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

Lay Then The Axe To The Root, And Teach Governments Humanity. It Is Their Sanguinary Punishments Which Corrupt Mankind.

Public Credit Is Suspicion Asleep.

The Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

It Is Always To Be Taken For Granted, That Those Who Oppose An Equality Of Rights Never Mean The Exclusion Should Take Place On Themselves.

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

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

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.

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

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

Aristocracy Is Kept Up By Family Tyranny And Injustice.

...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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The More Acquisitions The Government Makes Abroad, The More Taxes The People Have To Pay At Home.

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

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

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.

Let The World See That This Nation Can Bear Prosperity; And That Her Honest Virtue In Time Of Peace Is Equal To Her Bravest Valor In Time Of War.

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.

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

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

These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls.

The Christian Religion Is A Parody On The Worship Of The Sun, In Which They Put A Man Called Christ In The Place Of The Sun, And Pay Him The Adoration Originally Payed To The Sun.

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

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

It Is From The Power Of Taxation Being In The Hands Of Those Who Can Throw So Great A Part Of It From Their Own Shoulders, That It Has Raged Without A Check.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Oppression Is Often The Consequence, But Seldom Or Never The Means Of Riches.

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.

Government Is Best Which Governs Least

Democracies Have

The Vatican Is A Dagger In The Heart Of Italy.

Of All The Tyrannies That Affect Mankind, Tyranny In Religion Is The Worst.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Men Did Not Make The Earth... It Is The Value Of The Improvements Only, And Not The Earth Itself, That Is Individual Property. ... Every Proprietor Owes To The Community A Ground Rent For The Land Which He Holds.

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

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

It Has Been The Political Career Of This Man To Begin With Hypocrisy, Proceed With Arrogance, And Finish With Contempt

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.

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.

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

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.

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

It Is An Affront To Treat Falsehood With Complaisance.

The Birthday Of A New World Is At Hand.

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

I Would Not Dare So Dishonor My Creator's Name By Attaching It To This Filthy Book.

These Are The Days That Try Man's Heart.

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.

No Nation Ought To Be Without A Debt. A National Debt Is A National Bond; And When It Bears No Interest, Is In No Case A Grievance.

The World Is My Country, All Mankind Are My Brethren, And To Do Good Is My Religion.

A Share In Two Revolutions Is Living To Some Purpose.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Moderation In Temper Is Always A Virtue; But Moderation In Principle Is Always A Vice.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Every Age And Generation Must Be As Free To Act For Itself In All Cases As The Ages And Generations Which Preceded It. The Vanity And Presumption Of Governing Beyond The Grave Is The Most Ridiculous And Insolent Of All Tyrannies.

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.

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.

There Is Something Absurd In Supposing A Continent To Be Perpetually Governed By An Island.

Those Who Knew Benjamin Franklin Will Recollect That His Mind Was Forever Young, His Temper Ever Serene; Science, That Never Grows Gray, Was Always His Mistress. He Was Never Without An Object, For When We Cease To Have An Object, We Become Like An Invalid In A Hospital Waiting For Death.

My Country Is Wherever Liberty Lives.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Could The Peaceable Principle Of The Quakers Be Universally Established, Arms And The Art Of War Would Be Wholly Extirpated: But We Live Not In A World Of Angels...i Am Thus Far A Quaker, That I Would Gladly Agree With All The World To Lay Aside The Use Of Arms, And Settle Matters By Negotiation: But Unless The Whole Will, The Matter Ends, And I Take Up My Musket And Thank Heaven He Has Put It In My Power.

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

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

The Mere Man Of Pleasure Is Miserable In Old Age, And The Mere Drudge In Business Is But Little Better, Whereas, Natural Philosophy, Mathematical And Mechanical Science, Are A Continual Source Of Tranquil Pleasure, And In Spite Of The Gloomy Dogmas Of Priests And Of Superstition, The Study Of These Things Is The True Theology; It Teaches Man To Know And Admire The Creator, For The Principles Of Science Are In The Creation, And Are Unchangeable And Of Divine Origin.

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.

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

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

Thus Commerce, Though In Itself A Moral Nullity, Has Had A Considerable Influence In Tempering The Human Mind....he Trades With The Same Countries ...(that He) Would Have Gone To War With.

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

The Slavery Of Fear Had Made Men Afraid To Think.

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.

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.

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

Virtue Is Not Hereditary.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

I Do Not Believe That Any Two Men, On What Are Called Doctrinal Points, Think Alike Who Think At All. It Is Only Those Who Have Not Thought That Appear To Agree.

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.

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William Lyon Mackenzie King

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