{"author":"Thomas Paine","author_id":"Thomas+Paine","total_quotes":141,"quotes":[{"text":"Loving, of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that he does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political sense, for there is no end to retaliation; each retaliates on the other, and calls it justice: but to love in proportion to the injury, if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for a crime. Besides, the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like a proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and prejudice, as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes in politics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal intention; and it is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to our own tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing that it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes no motive for love on the other part; and to say that we can love voluntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physically impossible.Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties that, in the first place, are impossible to be performed, and if they could be would be productive of evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. The maxim of doing as we would be done unto does not include this strange doctrine of loving enemies; for no man expects to be loved himself for his crime or for his enmity.Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies, are in general the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own part, I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulous morality; yet the man does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution, or in the French Revolution; or that I have, in any case, returned evil for evil.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["american-revolution","crime","dogma","enemies","feigned-morality","french-revolution","hypocrisy","injury","intention","justice","love","love-thy-enemy","loving","maxim","meaning","morality","motive","persecution","preach","premius","proverb","revenge","vague"],"id":4846,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["death","heart","politics "],"id":19279,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"I choose my life to this free. I choose my life to be this way.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["entrepreneur","life"],"id":22247,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["education","experience","wisdom"],"id":23558,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into kings and subjects. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and band, the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["politics"],"id":24447,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"If there is a country in the world where concord, according to common calculation, would be least expected, it is America. Made up as it is of people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits of government, speaking different languages, and more different in their modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison. There the poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged. Industry is not mortified by the splendid extravagance of a court rioting at its expense. Their taxes are few, because their government is just: and as there is nothing to render them wretched, there is nothing to engender riots and tumults.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["america","u-s"],"id":24915,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. ","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["christianity","religion","separation-of-church-and-state","skepticism"],"id":31897,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["wisdom","progress","end "],"id":33897,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["children","peace","live "],"id":38220,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["belief","christian-religion","falsified","sun","worship"],"id":38420,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":141,"pages":15,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}