"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and 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. The sun needs no inscription to distinguish him from darkness; and no sooner did the American governments display themselves to the world, than despotism felt a shock and man began to contemplate redress."
React to this quote
More by Thomas Paine
See allResonant Thoughts
"The first duty of a government is to be true to itself. This does not mean perfection, it means a plan to strive for perfection. It means loyalty to ideals. The ideals of America were set out in the D…"
"What's Bagism? It's like... a tag for what we all do, we're all in a bag ya know, and we realised that we came from two bags, I was in this pop bag going round and round in my little clique, and she w…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"But here I stop—short of any deterministic speculation that attributes specific behaviors to the possession…"
— Stephen Jay Gould"Right here in the Oval Office I sat down with Mr. Pachachi and Chalabi and al-Hakim, people from different …"
— George W. Bush"Maimonides explanation on Freedom of Choice as explained by the Lubavitcher Rebbe"
— Maimonides"Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanista…"
— Ronald Reagan"Whatever the cerebellum is doing, it’s doing a lot of it."
— Richard Bergland"In other words, Lincoln's belief was that slavery could be ended peacefully through the action of the state…"
— Harry V. Jaffa