Every thing you suffer you have sought: nay, had you created mischiefs on purpose to inherit them, you could not have secured your title by a firmer deed.
Thomas Paine: “Every thing you suffer you have sought: nay, had you created mischiefs on purpose to inherit them, you could not have…”
Editor's note · Context
From a series of pamphlets written during the American Revolution, this passage asserts that the British are solely responsible for the suffering they experience due to their own actions.
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It has nothing to dread from attacks; truth has given it an establishment, and time will record it with a name as lasting as his own.
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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 writes neither in the character of a Frenchman nor an Englishman, but in the fawning character of that creature known in all countries, and a friend to none--a courtier.