More Quotes by Thomas Paine
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.
Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
Government is best which governs least
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.
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
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; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.
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.
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
