Common Sense

by Thomas Paine

a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right,

When a lie is told so many times, it will eventually give you an illusion of truth.

Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one

the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.

Absolute governments (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine. I know it is difficult to get

Similarly in our society no one knows where the fault lies and since the fult can not be known a solution can not be advised or found.

How came the king by a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people,

neither can any power, which needs checking, be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist.

Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.

And so uncertain is the fate of war and the temper of a nation, when nothing but personal matters are the ground of a quarrel,

We may as well assert, that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat,

or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty.

Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself.

Men do not change from enemies to friends by the alteration of a name:

It is not in numbers but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world.

It is a matter worthy of observation, that the more a country is peopled, the smaller their armies are. In military numbers, the ancients far exceeded the moderns: and the reason is evident, for trade being the consequence of population, men become too much absorbed thereby to attend to any thing else. Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.

The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.

but from the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present opportunity—To begin government at the right end.