“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 …
Category Archives: Thomas Paine in Today’s World
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
On Why We Dream
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 who are unable to wander out of the track of common thinking when awake, never exceed the boundaries of common nature when asleep.
Thomas Paine
On Learning and Living
Every person of learning is finally his own teacher, the reason of which is that principles, being a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the understanding and they are never so lasting as when they begin by conception.
Thomas Paine
On Fear as a Tactic
When an objection cannot be made formidable, there is some policy in trying to make it frightful; and to substitute the yell and the war-whoop, in the place of reason, argument and good order.
Thomas Paine
On Spin, Politics, and Human Nature
The action of spinning upholds a top.
Thomas Paine
On Being What You Think
The mind of man is not sufficiently capacious to attend to every thing at once, and while it suffers itself to be eaten up by narrow prejudices or fretted by personal politics, it will have neither relish nor appetite for public virtues.
Thomas Paine
On Losing Sight of the Real Issue
It often happens that the weight of an argument is lost by the wit of setting it off; or the judgment disordered by an intemperate irritation of the passions.
Thomas Paine
On Fear and Truth
…the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.
Thomas Paine
On Paying the Taxman
When we think or talk about taxes, we ought to recollect that we lie down in peace and sleep in safety; that we can follow our farms or stores or other occupations, in prosperous tranquillity; and that these inestimable blessings are procured to us by the taxes that we pay. In this view, our taxes are properly our insurance money; they are what we pay to be made safe, and, in strict policy, are the best money we can lay out
Thomas Paine