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When It Shall Be Said In Any Country In The World My Poor Are Happy; Neither Ignorance Nor Distress Is To Be Found Among Them; My Jails Are Empty Of Prisoners, My Streets Of Beggars; The Aged Are Not In Want; The Taxes Are Not Oppressive; The Rational World Is My Friend, Because I Am A Friend Of Its Happiness: When These Things Can Be Said, There May That Country Boast Its Constitution And Its Government

-Thomas Paine

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When It Shall Be

Thomas Paine

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When It Shall Be Said In Any Country In The World My Poor Are Happy; Neither Ignorance Nor Distress Is To Be Found Among Them; My Jails Are Empty Of Prisoners, My Streets Of Beggars; The Aged Are Not In Want; The Taxes Are Not Oppressive; The Rational World Is My Friend, Because I Am A Friend Of Its Happiness: When These Things Can Be Said, There May That Country Boast Its Constitution And Its Government

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

A Man Will Pass Better Through The World With A Thousand Open Errors Upon His Back Than In Being Detected In One Sly Falsehood. When One Is Detected, A Thousand Are Suspected.

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.

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.

Human Nature Is Not Of Itself Vicious.

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

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.

The Vatican Is A Dagger In The Heart Of Italy.

Is It Because You Are Sunk In The Cruelty Of Superstition, Or Feel No Interest In The Honor Of Your Creator, That You Listen To The Horrid Tales Of The Bible, Or Hear Them With Callous Indifference?

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.

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

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.

I Disbelieve All Holy Men And Holy Books.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The 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

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

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.

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

Oppression Is Often The Consequence, But Seldom Or Never The Means Of Riches; And Tho' Avarice Will Preserve A Man From Being Necessitously Poor, It Generally Makes Him Too Timorous To Be Wealthy.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

No Country Can Be Called Free Which Is Governed By An Absolute Power; And It Matters Not Whether It Be An Absolute Royal Power Or An Absolute Legislative Power, As The Consequences Will Be The Same To The People.

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

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.

The Greatest Remedy For Anger Is Delay.

War Ought To Be No Man's Wish.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Virtue Is Not Hereditary.

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.

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

I Am Sensible That He Who Means To Do Mankind A Real Service Must Set Down With The Determination Of Putting Up, And Bearing With All Their Faults, Follies, Prejudices And Mistakes Until He Can Convince Them That He Is Right.

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

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

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

I 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Any System Of Religion That Has Anything In It That Shocks The Mind Of A Child, Cannot Be True.

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.

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

To Believe That God Created A Plurality Of Worlds, At Least As Numerous As What We Call Stars, Renders The Christian Faith At Once Little And Ridiculous; And Scatters It In The Mind Like Feathers In The Air.

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.

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

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.

Of All The Systems Of Religion That Ever Were Invented, There Is No More Derogatory To The Almighty, More Unedifying To Man, More Repugnant To Reason, And More Contradictory To Itself Than This Thing Called Christianity. Too Absurd For Belief, Too Impossible To Convince, And Too Inconsistent For Practice, It Renders The Heart Torpid Or Produces Only Atheists Or Fanatics. As An Engine Of Power, It Serves The Purpose Of Despotism, And As A Means Of Wealth, The Avarice Of Priests, But So Far As Respects The Good Of Man In General It Leads To Nothing Here Or Hereafter.

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

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.

Prejudice Will Fall In A Combat With Interest.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

Belief In A Cruel God Makes A Cruel Man.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The Burden Of The National Debt Consists Not In Its Being So Many Millions, Or So Many Hundred Millions, But In The Quantity Of Taxes Collected Every Year To Pay The Interest. If This Quantity Continue The Same, The Burden Of The National Debt Is The Same To All Intents And Purposes, Be The Capital More Or Less.

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.

Man Must Go Back To Nature For Information.

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.

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!

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.

My Country Is Wherever Liberty Lives.

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?

The Story Of The Whale Swallowing Jonah, Though A Whale Is Large Enough To Do It, Borders Greatly On The Marvelous; But It Would Have Approached Nearer To The Idea Of A Miracle If Jonah Had Swallowed The Whale.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

[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 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.

The Church Was Resolved To Have A New Testament, And As, After The Lapse Of More Than Three Hundred Years, No Handwriting Could Be Proved Or Disproved, The Church, Which Like Former Impostors Had Then Gotten Possession Of The State, Had Everything Its Own Way. It Invented Creeds, Such As That Called The Apostle's Creed, The Nicean Creed, The Athanasian Creed, And Out Of The Loads Of Rubbish That Were Presented It Voted Four To Be Gospels, And Others To Be Epistles, As We Now Find Them Arranged.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Nothing But Heaven Is Impregnable To Vice.

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

Civilization, Or That Which Is So Called, Has Operated Two Ways To Make One Part Of Society More Affluent And The Other Part More Wretched Than Would Have Been The Lot Of Either In A Natural State.

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

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.

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.

"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 Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph. What We Obtain Too Cheap, We Esteem Too Lightly; It Is Dearness Only That Gives Everything Its Value. I Love The Man That Can Smile In Trouble, That Can Gather Strength From Distress And Grow Brave By Reflection. 'tis The Business Of Little Minds To Shrink; But He Whose Heart Is Firm, And Whose Conscience Approves His Conduct, Will Pursue His Principles Unto Death.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Suspicion Is The Companion Of Mean Souls, And The Bane Of All Good Society.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

All Men Can Understand What Representation Is; And That It Must Necessarily Include A Variety Of Knowledge And Talents.

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.

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

There Is Something In Meanness Which Excites A Species Of Resentment That Never Subsides, And Something In Cruelty Which Stirs Up The Heart To The Highest Agony Of Human Hatred.

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.

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.

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

It Is Unpleasant To See Character Throw Itself Away.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Mutual Fear Is A Principal Link In The Chain Of Mutual Love.

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.

As To Religion, I Hold It To Be The Indispensable Duty Of All Government To Protect All Conscientious Professors Thereof, And I Know Of No Other Business Which Government Hath To Do Therewith.

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

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.

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

Had The News Of Salvation By Jesus Christ Been Inscribed On The Face Of The Sun And The Moon, In Characters That All Nations Would Have Understood, The Whole Earth Had Known It In Twenty-four Hours, And All Nations Would Have Believed It; Whereas, Though It Is Now Almost Two Thousand Years Since, As They Tell Us, Christ Came Upon Earth, Not A Twentieth Part Of The People Of The Earth Know Anything Of It, And Among Those Who Do, The Wiser Part Do Not Believe It.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Where Knowledge Is A Duty, Ignorance Is A Crime.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That God Cannot Lie, Is No Advantage To Your Argument, Because It Is No Proof That Priests Can Not, Or That The Bible Does Not.

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

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

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

Priests And Conjurors Are Of The Same Trade.

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

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

The 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.

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

All This [paul's Writing] Is Nothing Better Than The Jargon Of A Conjurer Who Picks Up Phrases He Does Not Understand To Confound The Credulous People Who Come To Have Their Fortune Told. Age Of Reason

Now, Which Am I To Believe, A Book That Any Impostor Might Make And Call The Word Of God, Or The Creation Itself Which None But An Almighty Power Could Make? For The Bible Says One Thing; And The Creation Says The Contrary. The Bible Represents God With All The Passions Of A Mortal, And The Creation Proclaims Him With All The Attributes Of A God.

Compassion, The Fairest Associate Of The Heart.

The Sun Never Shined On A Cause Of Greater Worth.

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.

Government Has No Right To Make Itself A Party In Any Debates Respecting The Principles Or Mode Of Forming Or Of Changing, Constitutions. It Is Not For The Benefit Of Those Who Exercise The Powers Of Government, That Constitutions, And The Governments Issuing From Them, Are Established.

Aristocracy Is Kept Up By Family Tyranny And Injustice.

The Mind Once Enlightened Cannot Again Become Dark.

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