A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the 'end of time,' or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the idea of individual freedom and the impossibility of any generation binding future generations to specific governance.
Thomas Paine's quote highlights the principle that no group of people can justly make rules or decisions that permanently bind future generations. Each generation has the inherent right to govern itself and make its own choices, free from the constraints imposed by those who came before it. This assertion champions the value of individual liberty and the responsibility of each age to determine its path, suggesting that governance should evolve with societal changes.
Themes
FreedomGovernancePosterityIndividualityGenerational Rights
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for democratic reforms, one might use this quote to emphasize the necessity of allowing future generations the freedom to make their own choices.
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.
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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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