Posted on 09/29/2021 11:05:09 PM PDT by libertasbella
"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."
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression."
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting 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."
"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."
"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."
"A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody."
"We still feel the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute."
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.libertasbella.com ...
"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws."
"I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated."
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."
"The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection."
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."
"Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul."
"Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe."
"...taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but that wars are raised to carry on taxes"
"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."
"Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise."
"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon."
"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall."
"An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot."
Those quotes are a thing of beauty. The Founding Fathers really “got it”, geniuses among mere mortal men.
“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.”
Very true.
I’m just a rebelling away on the internet, can you tell?
And now, everyone is content so long as the WiFi is still working.
/we have forgotten the faces of our fathers
Paine unreservedly supported the terror of the French revolution. You can cherry pick his writing to make it say what you want. He was roundly hated later in life. No one came to his funeral
Not rebel. Secede.
I can only suspect that you intended that post for someone else as I did not mention Paine, at all.
bfl
It’s little wonder why there’s so much hostility toward them these days.
-PJ
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