On the recordJanuary 1, 1776
The free spirit on which the American cause is founded, disdains to mix with such an impurity, and leaves it as rubbish fit only for narrow and suspicious minds to grovel in.
Said by
Thomas Paine
Source
gutenberg.orgThe free spirit on which the American cause is founded, disdains to mix with such an impurity, and leaves it as rubbish fit only for narrow and suspicious minds to grovel in.
Articulating the foundational principles of the American Revolution, this passage contrasts the nation's ideals with narrow-mindedness and suspicion.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity.
The American constitutions were to liberty what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax.
The meaning, then, good people, of all this, is: That government is governed by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or good evil, just as it pleases.