Indeed, in 2019, “The Times [have] found us!” Nancy Pelosi’s new favorite founder turns out to be Thomas Paine. Throughout 2019, she has quoted Paine from Common Sense with a deep cut, that previously, was rarely used as an isolated quote. She most recently cited Paine during this Late Show appearance:
“Whether fool or hypocrite, idiot or traitor, he has proved himself equally unworthy of the important functions that had been delegated to him.” —Thomas Paine, 1791
“The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another…” Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, 1795
“There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; …
“There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy…Read More »
I understand fully the limits of moral suasion. We have no illusion that changes will come easily or soon. But I also believe that it is a mistake to undervalue the power of words and of the ideas that words embody. In our own history, that power has ranged from Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” to …
Common Sense: without it, we cannot begin to pursue our ideals without it, we cannot understand our present situations without it, we will hopelessly pursue solutions to misunderstood problems Which is why the pursuit of common sense is the true challenge of our age! The world is not perfect, nor has it ever been. As …
“The malignant mind; like the jaundiced eye, sees everything through a false medium of its own creating. The light of heaven appears stained with yellow to the distempered sight of the one, and the fairest actions have the form of crimes in the venomed imagination of the other…” —Thomas Paine, 1803
trumpery (ˈtrəmp(ə)rē)
noun — worthless nonsense
If you don’t like your reflection, getting angry at the mirror probably isn’t the best course of action…
“After independence and union, perhaps the most important accomplishment of America’s founding generation was the preparation of the country to become, in Thomas Paine’s words, ‘an asylum for mankind,’ an unprecedented land of immigrants. The epic migration that followed has no parallel in history and its impact on our national development is impossible to overestimate. …
“[America is,] in Thomas Paine’s words, ‘an asylum for mankind,’” — John McCain, 1996Read More »
