“I am apt to think that the wisest men dream the most inconsistently. For as the judgment has nothing or very little to do in regulating the circumstances of a dream, it necessarily follows that the more powerful and creative the imagination is, the wilder it runs in that state of unrestrained invention; while those …
Category Archives: Philosophy of Thomas Paine
On Whether God Is a Christian
“Why may we not suppose that the great Father of all is pleased with a variety of devotion? And that the greatest offence we can act is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable? …I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike, …
On Dodging Bullets in Bosnia
It is easy to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the lie after it is told.-Thomas Paine How easy it is to be swept up in the moment and find yourself stepping over the line between fact and fiction. How hard it is to explain it after the moment has passed and …
On Speaking Truth to (and of) Power: When Good People Follow Bad Leaders
“When I look into history and see the multitudes of men, otherwise virtuous, who have died, and their families been ruined, in the defense of knaves and fools, and which they would not have done, had they reasoned at all upon the system; I do not know a greater good that an individual can render …
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