The arm of Britain has been spoken of as the arm of the Almighty, and she has lived of late as if she thought the whole world created for her diversion.
Thomas Paine: “The arm of Britain has been spoken of as the arm of the Almighty, and she has lived of late as if she thought the whole…”
Editor's note · Context
In "The American Crisis," Paine condemns Britain's imperial arrogance, portraying it as believing itself divinely powerful and entitled to global dominance.
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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.
I presume, that though all the people of England pay taxes, not an hundredth part of them are electors, and the members of one of the houses of parliament represent nobody but themselves.
If, therefore, the good to be obtained be worthy of a passive, rational, and costless revolution, it would be bad policy to prefer waiting for a calamity that should force a violent one.
There is, therefore, no power but the voluntary will of the people that has a right to act in any matter respecting a general reform; and by the same right that two persons can confer on such a subject, a thousand may.