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Common Sense & The Rights of Man - The Voice of the American Revolution: Words of a Visionary That Sparked the Revolution and Remained the Core of American Democratic Principles

Book by Thomas Paine · 3 quotes · Government, Mean, Arise

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Common Sense & The Rights of Man - The Voice of the American Revolution: Words of a Visionary That Sparked the Revolution and Remained the Core of American Democratic Principles Quotes

“...the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.”

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”

“To bring the matter to one point, Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us? Whoever says, No, to this question, is an independent, for independency means no more than this, whether we shall make our own law, or, whether the king, the greatest enemy which this continent hath, or can have, shall tell us there shall be no laws but such as I like.”