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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.

-Thomas Paine

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We Hold The Moral

Thomas Paine

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

A Government Of Our Own Is Our Natural Right; And When A Man Seriously Reflects On The Precariousness Of Human Affairs, He Will Become Convinced, That It Is Infinitely Wiser And Safer, To Form A Constitution Of Our Own In A Cool Deliberate Manner, While We Have It In Our Power, Than To Trust Such An Interesting Event To Time And Chance.

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.

He Who Dares Not Offend Cannot Be Honest.

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

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

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.

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

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

I Do Not Believe In The Creed Professed By Any Church That I Know Of. Each Of These Churches Accuse The Other Of Unbelief; And For My Part, I Disbelieve Them All.

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

The Age Of Ignorance Commenced With The Christian System.

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 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.

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.

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?

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.

Prejudice Will Fall In A Combat With Interest.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

There Is A Natural Firmness In Some Minds, Which Cannot Be Unlocked By Trifles, But Which, When Unlocked, Discovers A Cabinet Of Fortitude.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Error Of Those Who Reason By Precedents Drawn From Antiquity, Respecting The Rights Of Man, Is That They Do Not Go Far Enough Into Antiquity.

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.

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

Thirst For Power

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.

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

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.

These Are The Days That Try Man's Heart.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Aristocracy Has A Tendency To Degenerate The Human Species.

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

He Who Takes Nature For His Guide, Is Not Easily Beaten Out Of His Argument

My Mind Is My Own Church.

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

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.

A Government Of Our Own Is Our Natural Right

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

Titles Are But Nicknames, And Every Nickname Is A Title.

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.

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

I 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.

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 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

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.

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.

Tears May Soothe The Wounds They Cannot Heal.

Government Is A Necessary Evil

Public Credit Is Suspicion Asleep.

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

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

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.

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

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.

And To Read The Bible Without Horror, We Must Undo Everything That Is Tender, Sympathizing And Benevolent In The Heart Of Man.

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.

Titles Do Not Count With Posterity.

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

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.

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

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.

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

'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.

The Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph.

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

Government Without A Constitution, Is A Power Without A Right.

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.

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.

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

The 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

"government," Says Swift, "is A Plain Thing, And Fitted To The Capacity Of Many Heads."

There Never Did, There Never Will, And There Never Can Exist A Parliament, Or Any Description Of Men, Or Any Generation Of Men, In Any Country, Possessed Of The Right Or The Power Of Binding And Controlling Posterity To The 'end Of Time,' Or Of Commanding For Ever How The World Shall Be Governed, Or Who Shall Govern It. Every Age And Generation Must Be As Free To Act For Itself, In All Cases, As The Ages And Generations Which Preceded It.

...the Individuals Themselves, Each In His Own Personal And Sovereign Right, Entered Into A Compact With Each Other To Produce A Government: And This Is The Only Mode In Which Governments Have A Right To Arise, And The Only Principle On Which They Have A Right To Exist.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Every Person Of Learning Is Finally His Own Teacher.

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.

Reason Obeys Itself; And Ignorance Submits To Whatever Is Dictated To It.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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."

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.

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

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.

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 Continual Whine Of Lamenting The Burden Of Taxes, However Successfully It May Be Practiced In Mixed Governments, Is Inconsistent With The Sense And Spirit Of A Republic. If Taxes Are Necessary, They Are Of Course Advantageous, But If They Require An Apology, The Apology Itself Implies An Impeachment. Why, Then, Is Man Imposed Upon, Or Why Does He Impose Upon Himself?

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

A Share In Two Revolutions Is Living To Some Purpose.

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

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 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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Compassion, The Fairest Associate Of The Heart.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Character Is Much Easier Kept Than Recovered.

In Deism Our Reason And Our Belief Are Happily United.

Arms Discourage And Keep The Invader And Plunderer In Awe, And Preserve Order In The World As Well As Property... Horrid Mischief Would Ensue Were The Law-abiding Deprived Of The Use Of Them.

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.

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

The Balance Of Power Is The Scale Of Peace.

Second Amendment

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

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.

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.

The Study Of Theology, As It Stands In The Christian Churches, Is The Study Of Nothing.

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.

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

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.

Independence Is My Happiness, And I View Things As They Are, Without Regard To Place Or Person; My Country Is The World, And My Religion Is To Do Good.

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