On the record
Is the path so elegantly smooth, so decked on every side, and carpeted with joys, that wretchedness is wanting to enrich it as a soil?
Said by
Thomas Paine
Source
gutenberg.orgThomas Paine: “Is the path so elegantly smooth, so decked on every side, and carpeted with joys, that wretchedness is wanting to enrich…”
Editor's note · Context
Paine questions the notion that life is devoid of suffering, suggesting that hardship enriches our experiences.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
Jan 1, 1791
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.
Jan 1, 1791
I have carefully avoided to enlarge upon the subject, because I am inclined to believe that what is called the present ministry, wish to see contentions about religion kept up, to prevent the nation turning its attention to subjects of…
Jan 1, 1791
I have no idea, considering the reforms which are now passing and spreading throughout Europe, that England will permit herself to be the last; and where the occasion and the opportunity quietly offer, it is better than to wait for a…
Jan 1, 1791
I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all.