A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Citizenship defines our identity as a nation rather than by state or locality.
In this quote, Thomas Paine emphasizes that being an American is a broader and more significant identity than merely belonging to a specific state. It highlights the integrity of national identity over local distinctions, suggesting that while local affiliations matter, it is our collective identity as citizens of the United States that truly represents us to the world.
Themes
CitizenshipIdentityNational CharacterAmericansLocal Distinction
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about American unity on Independence Day.
More from Thomas Paine
All quotes →That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.
Thomas PaineRead
I consider the war of America against Britain as the country's war, the public's war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, for the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their own property.
Thomas PaineRead
Had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know anything of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it.
Thomas PaineRead
The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
Thomas PaineRead
To reason with goverments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected
Thomas PaineRead
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