A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Natural rights are inherent entitlements that individuals possess by virtue of their existence.
This quote by Thomas Paine emphasizes the concept of natural rights, which are fundamental rights that all individuals have simply by being human. These rights include intellectual and personal freedoms that allow individuals to pursue their own comfort and happiness, as long as their actions do not infringe upon the rights of others, highlighting the balance between personal liberty and social responsibility.
Themes
Natural RightsLibertyHappinessIndividual RightsPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about human rights in a law class.
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.
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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