A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
Time makes more converts than reason.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that over time, people's beliefs can change more through experience than through logical reasoning.
Thomas Paine's quote emphasizes the transformative power of time in shaping beliefs and opinions. It implies that while rational arguments can influence thought, the gradual passage of time plays a more significant role in converting individuals to new ideas or ideologies, as they witness changes and events that alter their perspective. This reflects the notion that lived experiences often outweigh theoretical reasoning in the long run.
Themes
TimeBeliefChangeExperienceReason
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a discussion on how societal norms evolve over generations.
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
Similar quotes
Deconstruction seems to offer a way out of the closure of knowledge. By inaugurating the open-ended indefiniteness of textuality-by thus 'placing in the abyss' (mettre en abime), as the French expression would literally have it-it shows us the lure of the abyss as freedom. The fall into the abyss of deconstruction inspires us with as much pleasure as fear. We are intoxicated with the prospect of never hitting bottom
Gayatri Chakravorty SpivakRead
Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark.
Amos OzRead
God damn! Drug dealers dealin' to the kiddies,_x000D_ _x000D_ Livin' in the city ain't no pity on the itty-bitty._x000D_ _x000D_ We try to cry, but still they all die,_x000D_ _x000D_ I try to speak to the youth, and the truth is: they all high.
Tupac ShakurRead
The old religionist cried out for his god. The new religionist cries out for some god to be his.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
As it turned out, though, it was a lot easier to say that someone deserved to die for what they did than it was to take the responsibility to make that happen.
Jodi PicoultRead
We live in a society in which it seems that every space, every moment must be 'filled' with initiatives, activity, sound; often there is not even time to listen and dialogue... Let us not be afraid to be silent outside and inside ourselves, so that we are able not only to perceive God's voice, but also the voice of the person next to us, the voices of others.
Pope Benedict XviRead