1
When the world was over run with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue.
The complete collection
All quotes
Every quote we hold, 2473 of them from 233 people across 1123 works. Filter it, sort it, and follow any citation back to the source.
2418 checked at source
Filter the collection
Category
Feeling
Attribution
10 quotes by Thomas Paine · clear filters
2
Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.
3
This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.
4
We have it in our power to begin the world over again
5
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
6
The enormous expense of governments has provoked people to think, by making them feel; and when once the veil begins to rend, it admits not of repair.
7
It is over the lowest class of mankind that government by terror is intended to operate, and it is on them that it operates to the worst effect.
8
A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution.
9
Government with insolence is despotism; but when contempt is added it becomes worse; and to pay for contempt is the excess of slavery.
10
The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting its government.