Thomas PaineEnglish-American author and politician |
To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason [...] is like giving medicine to the dead.
Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.
I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself - that is my doctrine.