A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution is power without a right. All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are not other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explains that a constitution represents the will of the people rather than the government itself, emphasizing the importance of having a foundational legal framework for just governance.
Thomas Paine argues that a constitution is a document created by the people to define and limit the powers of the government. It stresses that all legitimate power comes from the consent of the governed, and any power that lacks constitutional basis is considered illegitimate. Paine highlights the distinctions between delegated and assumed power, asserting that the former is a legitimate trust granted by the people while the latter is mere usurpation. This quote asserts the enduring significance of constitutional frameworks in ensuring rightful governance.
Themes
ConstitutionGovernmentPowerPeopleRightsTrust
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of constitutional rights during a civic engagement event.
More from Thomas Paine
All quotes →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.
Thomas PaineRead
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.
Thomas PaineRead
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.
Thomas PaineRead
The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
Thomas PaineRead
To reason with goverments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected
Thomas PaineRead
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