A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the vital importance of independent thought for maintaining freedom.
Thomas Paine's quote suggests that the act of relinquishing one's ability to think independently leads to the dissolution of personal freedom. When individuals stop questioning and reflecting, they surrender their autonomy and allow external powers to dictate their beliefs and actions, ultimately eroding liberty in society.
Themes
ThinkingLibertyFreedomIndependenceReflection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be cited during a discussion on the importance of critical thinking in education.
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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