"The American constitutions were to liberty, what..." - Quote by Thomas Paine
The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax
More by Thomas Paine
“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.”
“Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapable of being used as the means of unchangeable and universal information.”
“Rights are not gifts from one man to another, nor from one class of men to another. It is impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin of man; it consequently follows that rights appertain to man in right of his existence, and must therefore be equal to every man.”
More on Constitution
“Liberty cannot live apart from constitutional”
“To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.”
“The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.”
More on Liberty
“Liberty is dangerous.”
“I think the only way one can really determine whether extremism in the defense of liberty is justified, is not to approach it as an american or a european or an African or an Asian, but as a human being. If we look upon it as different types, immediately we begin to think in terms of extremism being good for one and bad for another, or bad for one and good for another. But if we look upon it, if we look upon ourselves as human beings, I doubt that anyone will deny that extremism in defense of liberty, the liberty of any human being, is no vice.”
“We are bound by the law, so that we may be free.”