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More Quotes by Thomas Paine
It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.
There are two distinct classes of men - those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.
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.
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.
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.
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
You cannot undermine police authority and then complain about rising crime.
I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.
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.
