Deep Quotes by Thomas Paine

Common Sense (1776), Introduction. The represented wording is verified in Project Gutenberg #147 and the validated scan-backed Wikisource 1776 sixth-edition transcription; Paine follows his warning that custom can make an error look right by observing that time often changes opinion where argument initially does not.

Common Sense (1776), Introduction. The represented opening sentence is verified in Project Gutenberg #147 and the validated scan-backed Wikisource transcription; Paine argues that familiarity can make a wrong practice appear right before public argument unsettles the custom.

Common Sense (1776), “Of the Origin and Design of Government in general,” validated Wikisource scan leaf 13. Paine distinguishes voluntary society from coercive government and calls government even in its best state a necessary evil.

Rights of Man, Part I, Conclusion; represented from Moncure Daniel Conway’s public-domain Project Gutenberg #3742 collection. The passage attributes national hostility to old systems of government rather than to an inevitable enmity between people.

Rights of Man, Part II; the surrounding passage attributes much ordinary social coordination to society itself.

Rights of Man; represented in the public-domain Conway edition and kept in the work’s polemical political context.