It shows that something is wrong in the system of government that injures the felicity by which society is to be preserved.
Thomas Paine: “It shows that something is wrong in the system of government that injures the felicity by which society is to be…”
Editor's note · Context
In "Rights of Man," Paine argues that social unrest indicates a flaw in the government system that harms the well-being essential for society's preservation.
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The insulted German and the enslaved Spaniard, the Russ and the Pole, are beginning to think.
I have no idea, considering the reforms which are now passing and spreading throughout Europe, that England will permit herself to be the last; and where the occasion and the opportunity quietly offer, it is better than to wait for a…
Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage, than any victory with all its expense.
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.