"Every age and generation must be as..." - Quote by Thomas Paine
Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.
More by Thomas Paine
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”
“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.”
“It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.”
More on Freedom
“I don't go by the rule book”
“Books that teach us to dance: There are writers who, by portraying the impossible as possible, and by speaking of morality and genius as if both were high-spirited freedom, as if man were rising up on tiptoe and simply had to dance out of inner pleasure.”
“Beware of those who seek to take care of you lest your caretakers become your jailers.”
More on Generations
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”
“One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.”
“Each generation supposes that the world was simpler for the one before it.”