“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.”
~Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”
~Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.”
~Thomas Paine, Common Sense