Reason and discussion will soon bring things right, however wrong they may begin.
Thomas Paine: “Reason and discussion will soon bring things right, however wrong they may begin.”
Editor's note · Context
In "Rights of Man," Paine expresses confidence in the ability of rational discourse to correct initial errors and lead to proper outcomes.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
It is a great standing which they have now universally obtained; and we may hereafter hope to see revolutions, or changes in governments, produced with the same quiet operation by which any measure, determinable by reason and discussion…
Where these can have the opportunity of acting, opposition dies with fear, or crumbles away by conviction.
Long experience however has shown, that reforms of this kind are not those which old governments wish to promote, and therefore it is to nations, and not to such governments, that these matters present themselves.
There ought, therefore, to be in every nation a method of occasionally ascertaining the state of public opinion with respect to government.