Thomas Paine Quotes
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
Paine, Thomas. The American Crisis, No. 13. Styner and Cist, 1783, p. 2.
See {640733} for an English political leader’s similar view.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. From the point of view of the person or company that bribes or gives campaign contributions to legislators, there has often been a problem that when the heat is on the legislator might begin to refrain from voting as was expected. Twain was joking in this quotation by using the world “morality” to describe the obligation of the legislator to vote for the interest of the briber or campaign contributor. However, there were several major businessmen who actually saw the bribed legislator as having a moral and ethical duty to continue to protect the interest of the briber.
Thomas Paine was an English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and helped inspire the patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights. Historian Saul K. Padover described him as "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination".
