01c. 1773 ADIt is, perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of labor to the profits it produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for the injustice, that were a workman to receive an increase of wages daily he would not save it against old age, nor be much better for it in the interim.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
02c. 1773 ADOf all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
04c. 1773 ADCommon sense will tell us, thatthe power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, themost improper to defend us.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
05c. 1773 ADThere 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.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
06c. 1773 ADIf I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
07c. 1773 ADNow, if the writers of these four books [Gospels] had gone into a court of justice to prove an alibi, (for it is of the nature of an alibi that is here attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead body by supernatural means,) and had they given their evidence in the same contradictory manner as it is here given, they would have been in danger of having their ears cropt for perjury, and would have justly deserved it. Yet this is the evidence, and these are the books, that have been imposed upon the world as being given by divine inspiration, and as the unchangeable word of God.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
08c. 1773 ADI have spoken of Jonah, and of the story of him and the whale. — A fit story for ridicule, if it was written to be believed; or of laughter, if it was intended to try what credulity could swallow; for, if it could swallow Jonah and the whale it could swallow anything.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
10c. 1773 ADImmediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
11c. 1773 ADIt is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than he is to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
12c. 1773 ADYet 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.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
13c. 1773 ADThe story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his ark, drops to a level with the Arabian Tales, without the merit of being entertaining, and the account of men living to eight and nine hundred years becomes as fabulous as the immortality of the giants of the Mythology.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
15c. 1773 ADO ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, butthe tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression.Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa,have long expelled her.?Europe regards her like a stranger, and Englandhath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare intime an asylum for mankind.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
16c. 1773 ADEvery child born in the world must be considered as deriving its existence from God. The world is this new to him as it was to the first that existed, and his natural right in it is of the same kind.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
17c. 1773 ADCalumny is a vice of curious constitution trying to kill it keeps it alive leave it to itself and it will die a natural death.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
18c. 1773 ADWhatever has a tendency to promote the civil intercourse of nations by an exchange of benefits is a subject as worthy of philosophy as of politics.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
19c. 1773 ADGovernment even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
20c. 1773 ADIt is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
21c. 1773 ADThe world is my country all mankind are my brethren and to do good is my religion.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
22c. 1773 ADThese are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
23c. 1773 ADThose who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must like men undergo the fatigue of supporting it.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
24c. 1773 ADThe harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly 'tis dearness only that gives everything it's value.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
