"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty.
It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and
to misapply even the best of laws.
He that would make his own liberty secure
must guard even his enemy from oppression;
for if he violates his duty
he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
-- Thomas Paine
(1737-1809)
Source: Dissertation on First Principles of Government, 7 July 1795
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Thomas.Paine.Quote.3050

"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty 
quits the horizon." -- Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
http://liberty-tree.ca/qb/Thomas.Paine.Quote.8CEF

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his 
enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes 
a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine

"[To My Fellow-Citizens of the United States of America
	I put the following work under your protection.  It contains my 
opinion on religion.]  You will do me justice to remember that I have always 
strenuously  supported the right to his own opinion, however different that 
opinion may be to mine.  He who denies another this right makes a slave of 
himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of 
changing it." -- Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason.

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.  I have 
never used any other, and I trust I never shall." -- Thomas Paine, The Age Of 
Reason

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the 
fatigue of supporting it." -- Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Source: Common Sense, February 14, 1776
http://liberty-tree.ca/qb/Thomas.Paine.Quote.5DE0

"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in it's 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." -- Thomas Paine; Common Sense (I'd do more, but I'd quote 
it all and I have no time to plagerize such beauty, I recommemd it as a read.).

"It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing
the principles of Freedom, to say, that government is a compact
between those who govern and those that are governed:
but this cannot be true, because it is putting the effect before
the cause; for as man must have existed before governments existed,
there necessarily was a time when governments did not exist,
and consequently there could originally exist no governors
to form such a compact with. The fact therefore must be, that the
individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right,
entered into a compact with each other to produce a government:
and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise,
and the only principle on which they have a right to exist."
-- Thomas Paine
(1737-1809)
http://liberty-tree.ca/qb/Thomas.Paine.Quote.8124

http://politics.myegotimes.com/