Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secur… - Thomas Paine

Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured

Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honour. It is not the produce of riches only, but of the hard earnings of labour and poverty. It is drawn even from the bitterness of want and misery. Not a beggar passes, or perishes in the streets, whose mite is not in that mass.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.