Thomas Paine: “It is sufficient to awaken the most credulous into suspicion, and the most obstinate into thought.”

As soldiers have hitherto been treated in most countries, they might be said to be without a friend.

Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable?

The poor, in all countries, are naturally both peaceable and grateful in all reforms in which their interest and happiness is included.

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.