“I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.”

Thomas Paine did not shy away from expressing his opinion or of commenting on the opinions of others. He reveled in the ideas blossoming in the Age of Enlightenment with a zeal that helped foment revolution on two continents. He forcefully challenged those that refused to open their minds to the changing world around them, those that would condemn him simply because his ideas did not always conform to the mainstream of his day. For that he was reviled by many.

But if we deny the right of others to express their own opinion, most especially when it differs from our own, do we diminish the validity of our own ideas?

Paine understood that to agree with an opinion is far less important than having one of your own in the first place.

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