Thomas Paine Quotes

Locke contended that government originates out of the necessity for protecting property.

Government is instituted for those who live under it.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary; if they are fundamentally bad, any government, being composed of human beings, would be bad also.

Men are born free, that since they begin with no government, they must therefore institute government by voluntary agreement, and thus government must be their agent, not their superior.

To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin.

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins ... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

Probably Hobbes got it right when he said that a leviathan, a third party with a monopoly on the use of legitimate use of force in a territory, might be among the biggest violence reduction techniques ever invented.

The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

The state is therefore everyone; the rules within the state are laws which safeguard the welfare of all and which must originate from the welfare of all.

Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends; the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them.

Governments arise either out of the people or over the people.

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

Government is merely an attempt to express the conscience of everybody, the average conscience of the nation, in the rules that everybody is commanded to obey. That is all it is.

Governments have their origin in the moral identity of men.

From this bestial view that the human mind consists of only sense certainty, pleasure and pain, Locke developed an equally bestial theory of the nation. Man originally existed in a State of Nature of complete liberty.

The need for Government is the need for force; where force is unnecessary, there is no need for Government.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Laws are the terms by which independent and isolated men united to form a society, once they tired of living in a perpetual state of war where the enjoyment of liberty was rendered useless by the uncertainty of its preservation. They sacrificed a portion of this liberty so that they could enjoy the remainder in security and peace.

To make a State appear necessary, any would-be State must first destroy the natural order and create a Hobbesian "anarchy" characterized by looting and vandalizing.

The preservation of the laws was the sole reason which induced men to allow of, and to elect a superior; that is the true origin of sovereign power.

Whoever desires to found a nation and give it laws must begin by assuming that all men are bad and always ready to display their evil nature.

But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external controls nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness….government in its best state is a necessary evil; in its worse state an intolerable one.