If our enemies can draw consolation from misfortune, and exert themselves upon despair, how much more ought we, who are to win a continent by the conquest, and have already an earnest of success?
In "The American Crisis," Paine uses a rhetorical question to inspire greater effort and confidence among Americans, contrasting their potential for victory with the desperation of their enemies.
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In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.
The aristocracy has screened itself too much, and this serves to restore a part of the lost equilibrium.
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The man who is in the receipt of a million a year is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest, in the event, it should reach to himself.