A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous conscientiousness of honor. It is not the produce of riches only, but of the hard earnings of labor and poverty. It is drawn even from the bitterness of want and misery. Not a beggar passes, or perishes in the streets, whose mite is not in that mass.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Public funds should be handled with great care and integrity, recognizing the sacrifices of those who contribute.
Thomas Paine emphasizes the importance of treating public money with the utmost respect and integrity. He points out that public funds are not just accumulated wealth but are derived from the hard work and struggles of the less fortunate, making it crucial to consider the dignity of every individual who contributes, regardless of their financial status.
Themes
Public MoneyIntegrityHonorLaborPovertyResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a debate about government spending and financial accountability.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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