The continual spectacle of woe blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight, renders it familiar.
Thomas Paine: “The continual spectacle of woe blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight, renders it…”
Editor's note · Context
Paine describes how constant exposure to suffering during war dulls human empathy and makes hardship seem ordinary.
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.
Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable?
When men unite in agreeing that a thing is good, could it be obtained, such for instance as relief from a burden of taxes and the extinction of corruption, the object is more than half accomplished.
Discussion and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.