To trace over in imagination the purity of the cause, the voluntary sacrifices that were made to support it, and all the various turnings of the war in its defence, is at once both paying and receiving respect.
Reflecting on the American Revolution, Paine describes the act of remembering the cause and sacrifices as a form of mutual respect.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
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.
The present age will hereafter merit to be called the Age of Reason, and the present generation will appear to the future as the Adam of a new world.
Nations, like individuals, who have long been enemies, without knowing each other, or knowing why, become the better friends when they discover the errors and impositions under which they had acted.
The poor, in all countries, are naturally both peaceable and grateful in all reforms in which their interest and happiness is included.