Thomas Paine: “Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be…”

I presume, that though all the people of England pay taxes, not an hundredth part of them are electors, and the members of one of the houses of parliament represent nobody but themselves.

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

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.

In those which proceed from the former cause, the temper becomes incensed and soured; and the redress, obtained by danger, is too often sullied by revenge.