He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
-Thomas Paine
Author Archives: Thomas Schueneman
On the True Source of Political Power
All power exercised over a Nation must have some beginning. I must either be delegated or assumed. There are no other sources. All delegated power is turst, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either.
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
On the Forthright and the Deceiver
How nearly is human cunning allied to folly! The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning, know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning, he blunders and betrays.
-Thomas Paine
On Meaningless Titles and Knowing That the Emperor Has No Clothes
When I reflect on the pompous titles bestowed on unworthy men, I feel an indignity that instructs me to despise the absurdity.
-Thomas Paine
On Beauty, Being Without Words, and Chills Going Up the Spine
We sometimes experience sensations to which language is not equal. The conception is too bulky to be born alive, and in the torture of thinking, we stand dumb. Our feelings, imprisoned by their magnitude, find no way out — and, in the struggle of expression, every finger tries to be a tongue. The machinery of the body seems too little for the mind, and we look about for helps to show our thoughts by.
-Thomas Paine
On Learning to Sit Quietly and Listen
“There are cases in which silence is a loud language.”-Thomas Paine It is a world of constant chatter, most of it signifying nothing. The trick then, is to turn off all the devices and contrivances of the modern world and listen to the sound of silence. The spaces in our existence that are buried beneath …
On Defining Victory in Iraq
“There is something in a war carried on by invasion which makes it differ in circumstances from any other mode of war, because he who conducts it cannot tell whether the ground he gains, be for him, or against him, when he first makes it.” -Thomas Paine, The Crisis News Item: “US Forces Face Bloody …
On Doing What is Right vs. Doing What is Popular
“I have never made it a consideration whether the subject was popular or unpopular, but whether it was right or wrong; for that which is right will become popular, and that which is wrong, though by mistake it may obtain the cry or fashion of the day, will soon lose the power of delusion, and …
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On Why We All Need Help – And a Friend
“The abilities of man must fall short on one side or the other, like too scanty a blanket when you are abed. If you pull it upon your shoulders, your feet are left bare; if you thrust it down to your feet, your shoulders are uncovered.”-Thomas Paine We’re a social animal, more or less. It …
On the Ongoing Saga of Alberto Gonzales and the Department of Justice
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
Thomas Paine