A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?"
Interpretation
What this quote means
Governments should be constantly improved, not controlled by the ignorant and corrupt.
In this quote, Thomas Paine expresses his belief that government should be open to improvement and reform, emphasizing that it has historically been dominated by the incompetent and morally corrupt. He argues that the evidence of poor governance is reflected in the burdens of debt and taxes that affect nations and the conflicts that arise due to their mismanagement.
Themes
GovernmentReformCorruptionManagementDebtTaxes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for political reform.
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.
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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.
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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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