Thomas Paine: “The final controlling power, therefore, and the original constituting power, are one and the same power.”

Nothing can be more terrible to a Court or Courtier than the Revolution of France.

Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur, and this was the case in France.

The more it is struck the more sparks it will emit; and the fear is it will not be struck enough.

It was a sort of new form of government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and to unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity.