Thomas Paine: “It is time that nations should be rational, and not be governed like animals, for the pleasure of their riders.”

If men will permit themselves to think, as rational beings ought to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expense of building navies, filling them with men, and then…

As soldiers have hitherto been treated in most countries, they might be said to be without a friend.

Never did so great an opportunity offer itself to England, and to all Europe, as is produced by the two Revolutions of America and France.

The oppressed soldier will become a freeman; and the tortured sailor, no longer dragged through the streets like a felon, will pursue his mercantile voyage in safety.