Thomas Paine: “It is the popery of government; a thing kept up to amuse the ignorant, and quiet them into taxes.”

The thing, in many points, contained better principles than those upon which the Government had hitherto been administered; but with respect to the Cour Pleniere, it was no other than a medium through which despotism was to pass, without…

The man who is in the receipt of a million a year is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest, in the event, it should reach to himself.

He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.

The argument changes from hereditary rights to hereditary wisdom; and the question is, Who is the wisest man?