A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the troubling reality of individuals profiting from conflict and unrest between nations.
Thomas Paine points out a disturbing truth about society: there are people whose livelihoods depend on promoting and sustaining warfare and disputes between nations. This reality raises ethical concerns about the nature of profit derived from human suffering and the moral implications of those who thrive in times of conflict.
Themes
WarConflictProfitNationsQuarrels
In practice
Example use cases
Quoting this in a discussion about the military-industrial complex.
More from Thomas Paine
All quotes βThat 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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Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings.
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The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.
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Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
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I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.
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War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
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In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.
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