Thomas Paine

Man worships not himself, but his Maker; and the liberty of conscience which he claims is not for the service of himself, but of his God.

Toleration is not the opposite of Intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it.

The French Constitution hath abolished or renounced Toleration and Intolerance also, and hath established Universal Right Of Conscience.

It is a case that applies itself to every man's sense of justice, and is one among many that calls aloud for a constitution.

The greatest characters the world have known have arisen on the democratic floor.

It defeats even its pretended end, and becomes in time the opposite of what is noble in man.

Because aristocracy has a tendency to deteriorate the human species.

Because it is continuing the uncivilised principle of governments founded in conquest, and the base idea of man having property in man, and governing him by personal right.

Because a body of men, holding themselves accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted by anybody.

Because the idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet laureate.

Their ideas of distributive justice are corrupted at the very source.

To restore, therefore, parents to their children, and children to their parents relations to each other, and man to society--and to exterminate the monster aristocracy, root and branch--the French Constitution has destroyed the law of…