Thomas Paine: “Of more use was one philosopher, though a heathen, to the world, than all the heathen conquerors that ever existed.”

In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.

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.

The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.

The Aristocracy had hitherto opposed the despotism of the Court, and affected the language of patriotism; but it opposed it as its rival (as the English Barons opposed King John) and it now opposed the nation from the same motives.