1
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.
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8 quotes by Thomas Paine · clear filters
2
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
3
When the world was over run with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue.
4
A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution.
5
The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting its government.
6
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.
7
Government with insolence is despotism; but when contempt is added it becomes worse; and to pay for contempt is the excess of slavery.
8
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.