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“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
Paine places moral allegiance beyond national or sectarian identity, presenting humanity at large and practical good-doing as more fundamental than loyalty to a particular place or religious label.
Source note: Rights of Man, Part II, Project Gutenberg public-domain collection #3742. The line appears in Paine’s statement of independence from place or person while criticizing hereditary political privilege. The exact text is “my country is the world, and my religion is to do good,” not the later expanded attribution “all mankind are my brethren.”
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“The tree of Freedom is rooted in Duty.”
The metaphor makes responsibility a condition of meaningful freedom, opposing the idea that liberty consists only in escaping obligation.
Source note: All These Things Added, Part II, “Perfect Freedom”; Wikisource 1903 text. The short excerpt comes from Allen’s argument joining freedom with willing duty.
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“Society in equality is its normal state.”
Mill contrasts relations organized around command and obedience with equal association, presenting equality as the normal direction of an improving society.
Source note: The Subjection of Women, discussion of marriage and moral cultivation; the sentence follows Mill’s contrast between older command-and-obedience relations and society among equals.
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“These are the times that try men's souls.”
Crisis reveals commitment because principles become costly to maintain precisely when fear, fatigue, and uncertainty make retreat easier.
Source note: Opening of The American Crisis No. I; Paine addresses perseverance during a difficult stage of the American Revolution.
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“Let us have faith that right makes might.”
Lincoln reverses the idea that power establishes right, arguing that moral judgment should guide sustained political action rather than treating strength or intimidation as proof of justice.
Source note: Cooper Union Address, February 27, 1860, closing passage. Lincoln is defending Republican opposition to the extension of slavery into federal territories; the line retains that antislavery political context.
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“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Lincoln uses a structural metaphor: a system pulled permanently in opposite directions cannot remain stable forever.
Source note: Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858.