A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
These are the times that try men's souls.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the challenges that test human resilience and character during difficult times.
Thomas Paine's quote underscores the notion that adversity reveals a person's true strength and determination. In times of crisis, individuals are tested to their limits, and it is often in these moments that their essential qualities and values come to the forefront. Paine encourages reflection on how we respond to challenges, suggesting that such trials are opportunities for growth and reaffirmation of our principles.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a motivational speech about overcoming life challenges.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern β and to take the jump and to stake everything on these values.
If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.
The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down.
I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... so other people would be also free.
Cancer is messy and scary. You throw everything at it, but don't forget to throw love at it. It turns out that might be the best weapon of all.
The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.
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