Thomas Paine: “The fraud, hypocrisy, and imposition of governments, are now beginning to be too well understood to promise them any…”

As to what are called national religions, we may, with as much propriety, talk of national Gods.

Discussion and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.

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.

Reason and discussion, persuasion and conviction, become the weapons in the contest, and it is only when those are attempted to be suppressed that recourse is had to violence.