Thomas Paine

I know the value of moral instruction, and I have seen the danger of the contrary.

If monarchy is a useless thing, why is it kept up anywhere? and if a necessary thing, how can it be dispensed with?

The aristocracy has screened itself too much, and this serves to restore a part of the lost equilibrium.

Many of the facts were in themselves principles; such as the declaration of American Independence, and the treaty of alliance between France and America, which recognised the natural rights of man, and justified resistance to oppression.

The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.

A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity.

The peer and the beggar are often of the same family.

The thing, in many points, contained better principles than those upon which the Government had hitherto been administered; but with respect to the Cour Pleniere, it was no other than a medium through which despotism was to pass, without…

When it becomes necessary to do anything, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it.

It was a sort of new form of government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and to unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity.

He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.

A German Elector is in his electorate a despot; how then could it be expected that he should be attached to principles of liberty in one country, while his interest in another was to be supported by despotism?