"Government, like dress, is the badge of..." - Quote by Thomas Paine
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
More by Thomas Paine
“Common sense will tell us, thatthe power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, themost improper to defend us.”
“It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all.”
“He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third.”
More on Government
“Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent - the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free.”
“The institution of royalty in any form is an insult to the human race.”
“Democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than oligarchy. For in oligarchies there is the double danger of the oligarchs falling out among themselves and also with the people; but in democracies there is only the danger of a quarrel with the oligarchs. No dissension worth mentioning arises among the people themselves. And we may further remark that a government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.”