Thomas Paine: “It watches prosperity as its prey, and permits none to escape without a tribute.”

The meaning, then, good people, of all this, is: That government is governed by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or good evil, just as it pleases.

The more it is struck the more sparks it will emit; and the fear is it will not be struck enough.

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…

Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur, and this was the case in France.