Every passion but that of despair has been called to a tour of duty; and so mistaken has been the enemy, of our abilities and disposition, that when she supposed us conquered, we rose the conquerors.
Paine asserts in "The American Crisis" that America's resilience and the enemy's miscalculation have led to unexpected victories.
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As soldiers have hitherto been treated in most countries, they might be said to be without a friend.
With how much more glory, and advantage to itself, does a nation act, when it exerts its powers to rescue the world from bondage, and to create itself friends, than when it employs those powers to increase ruin, desolation, and misery.
Reason and discussion, persuasion and conviction, become the weapons in the contest, and it is only when those are attempted to be suppressed that recourse is had to violence.
Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage, than any victory with all its expense.