Thomas Paine

The putting any individual as a figure for a nation is improper.

It is inconsistent to pay the one, and accept the service of the other gratis.

A nation can have no right to the time and services of any person at his own expense, whom it may choose to employ or entrust in any department whatever; neither can any reason be given for making provision for the support of any one part…

The sovereign authority in any country is the power of making laws, and everything else is an official department.

A foreigner cannot be a member of Parliament, but he may be what is called a king.

The presidency in America (or, as it is sometimes called, the executive) is the only office from which a foreigner is excluded, and in England it is the only one to which he is admitted.

He is never in full natural or political connection with the country, is not responsible for anything, and becomes of age at eighteen years; yet such a person is permitted to form foreign alliances, without even the knowledge of the…

As the principle on which constitutions are now formed rejects all hereditary pretensions to government, it also rejects all that catalogue of assumptions known by the name of prerogatives.

By admitting a participation of the spoil, it makes itself friends; and when it ceases to do this it will cease to be the idol of courtiers.

It is the master-fraud, which shelters all others.

Monarchy would not have continued so many ages in the world, had it not been for the abuses it protects.

The man who is in the receipt of a million a year is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest, in the event, it should reach to himself.