A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so, the prejudice will be gone.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People are often attached to beliefs or ideas because they perceive them as good or right, but this attachment fades once they recognize their faults.
In this quote, Thomas Paine highlights the idea that prejudice or attachment to beliefs stems from a person's perception of those beliefs as right or beneficial. When individuals confront the truth that their beliefs are misguided or wrong, their attachment diminishes, illustrating the power of awareness and understanding in overcoming biases and prejudices.
Themes
PrejudiceBeliefsTruthKnowledgeUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for critical thinking, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of re-evaluating our beliefs.
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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