I am not for declaring war with every man that appears not so warm as myself: difference of constitution, temper, habit of speaking, and many other things, will go a great way in fixing the outward character of a man, yet simple honesty may remain at bottom.
Paine advocates for understanding individual differences in temperament and expression, suggesting that outward demeanor does not always reflect inner honesty.
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The object, in all such preliminary proceedings, is to find out what the general sense of a nation is, and to be governed by it.
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.
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.