“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: Thomas Paine in Today’s World
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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On Redacting the Truth
“Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion. Truth never envelops itself in mystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.”-Thomas Paine The enemy of truth is often …
On When the Only Right Thing to Do is Get Mad
“There are men who have not virtue enough to be angry.”-Thomas Paine But that isn’t you – you’re mad as hell and you aren’t going to take it anymore. Tags: mad+as+hell, anger, thomas+paine+quotes+interpreted
On Voting for Change
“When moral principles, rather than persons, are candidates for power, to vote is to perform a moral duty, and not to vote is to neglect a duty.”-Thomas Paine When it is necessary for a nation to change its course, as it surely is now, it is not only a right but also our duty to vote for the …
On the Campaign Primaries
“A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation”-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man Capturing the imagine of a nation, inspiring its citizens to unite and rise above petty grievance and intolerance, is what we need. Instead we get the primaries. Tags: thomas+paine+politica+party, thomas+paine+politics, thomas+paine+primaries, 2008+presidential+campaign, thomas+paine+quotes+interpreted
On Choosing Your Battles
“It is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.”-Thomas Paine Prejudiced thinking drives away the burden of logic, making rational argument both unnecessary and a waste of time. It is best, …
On Loving Your Enemy, Forgiveness, and Common Sense
“Loving of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that he does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political sense, for there is no end to retaliation, each retaliates on the other, and calls it justice; …
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On Change, Creating a Better World, and Gratitude
“To see it in our power to make a world happy – to teach mankind the art of being – to exhibit on the theater of the universe, a character hitherto unknown – and to have, as it were, a new creation entrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be …
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