A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
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
Interpretation
What this quote means
True change in government must come from the people, not from debates with those in power.
Thomas Paine emphasizes the futility of trying to persuade governments that have long been entrenched in their ways, likening them to 'brutes'. He advocates for the notion that real reform and progress can only arise from the collective will and action of the people themselves rather than through negotiations with established authorities.
Themes
GovernmentReformPeopleChangeAction
In practice
Example use cases
During a political rally where grassroots movements are discussed.
More from Thomas Paine
All quotes βThat 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
Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
Thomas PaineRead
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Rather than feeling lost and unimportant and meaningless, set against galaxies which go beyond the reach of the furthest telescopes, I feel that my life has meaning. Perhaps I should feel insignificant, but instead I feel a soaring in my heart that the God who could create all this β and out of nothing β can still count the hairs of my head.
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We must learn to talk with each other, and we mutually must understand and accept one another in our extraordinary differences.
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So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues.
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Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world.
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