“Were a man to be totally deprived of memory, he would be incapable of forming any just opinion.” There is the memory of a singles person’s life, that of whole nations and tribes, and the collective memory of all humanity. In all cases, to forget what has gone before is to deny the light of …
Category Archives: Thomas Paine in Today’s World
On What Makes a Cold Heart
“Arrogance and meanness, though in appearance opposite, are vices of the same heart.” Through arrogance we find a haughty sense of pride that disregards all but itself. Through meanness comes cruelty and malevolence that lashes out and injures others. Both are torn from the same soiled cloth of a heart despairing for its own compassion. …
On Not Giving Up
It ought not to be, that because we cannot do everything, that we ought not to do what we can.
-Thomas Paine
On the Problem of Assuming the Worst – Accepting a Heart of Darkness
For as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomes inclined to wish it. The pride of having his judgment right hardens his heart, till at last he beholds with satisfaction, or sees with disappointment, the accomplishment or the failure of his predictions.
-Thomas Paine
On the War in Iraq, Nearly Four Years On
No human foresight can discern, no conclusion can be formed, what turn a war might take, if once set on foot by an invasion.
On the Golden Rule
Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself – that is my doctrine.
-Thomas Paine
On the Need for Government Oversight and Citizen Involvement
Can we possibly suppose that if Governments had originated in a right principal, and had not an interest in pursuing a wrong one, the world could have been in the wretched and quarelsome condition we have seen it?
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
On Right Thinking, Logical Reasoning, and Not Judging a Book by its Cover
It is only by tracing things to their origin, that we can gina rightful ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we discover the boudary that divides right from wrong, and teaches every man to know his own.
-Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice
On the State of the Union Address and Governement Assembled
That government is best which governs least.
-Thomas Paine
On Legislation Introduced to Address Global Warming and Climate Change
To perserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy at the same time the evils it has produced, ought to be considered as one of the first objectives of reformed legislation,
-Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice