A Quote by Thomas Paine
Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the 'end of time,' or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it.
Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself.
What does our generation owe to generations yet unborn? ...there is an order in the universe which must be respected, and... the human person, endowed with the capability of choosing freely, has a grave responsibility to preserve this order for the well-being of future generations.
But an opinion that it is possible for the present generation to seize and use the property of future generations has produced to both parties concerned, effects of the same complexion with the usual fruits of national errour. The present age is cajoled to tax and enslave itself, by the errour of believing that it taxes and enslaves future ages to enrich itself.
We hear much nowadays as to the speculative ideas of men concerning the condition beyond the grave; but the admission that there is an individual existence beyond the grave, is a declaration that there must have been an individual, intelligent creation before we came here in the flesh. Life beyond the grave postulates a pre-existent state.
Of all the tyrannies that effect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity.
This is a generation weaned on Watergate, and there is no presumption of innocence and no presumption of good intentions. Instead, there is a presumption that, without relentless scrutiny, the government will misbehave.
What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without ground for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time.
Men speak of blind destiny, a thing without scheme or purpose. But what sort of destiny is that? Each act in this world from which there can be no turning back has before it another, and it another yet. In a vast endless net. Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in the maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life.
You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods.
It is the utterly destructive quality. When you say vanity, you are thinking of the kind that admires itself in mirrors and buys things to deck itself out in. But that is merely personal conceit. Real vanity is something quite different. A matter not of person but of personality. Vanity says, "I must have this because I am me." It is a frightening thing because it is incurable.
The duty of holding a Neutral conduct may be inferred, without any thing more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of Peace and amity toward other Nations.
Vanity of vanities… all is vanity.’ You kill yourself to get to the grave. Especially you kill yourself to get to the grave before you die; and the name of the grave is ‘success’, the name of that grave is hullabullo boom boom horseshit.
Men were considered "free" only so that they might be considered guilty - could be judged and punished: consequently, every act had to be considered as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness (and thus the most fundamental psychological deception was made the principle of psychology itself).
Not only in order to act morally, but even to formulate theoretical questions, devise experiments, choose which ones to perform and what conclusions to draw from then - we must presuppose that we are free. That's the sense in which it is true that for Kant "we must assume we are free."
I am concerned that Millennials are stressed out. They have a higher suicide rate than other generations at their same age. They have the highest diagnosis of depression at their age than other generations. I think we have raised a generation that does not know how to be sad. They are programmed for success and the threat of failure is devastating.
Related Authors
Aung San Suu Kyi Quotes
Burmese
Activist
Bill Ayers Quotes
American
Activist
Edward Snowden Quotes
American
Activist
Elizabeth Cady Stanton Quotes
American
Activist
Emma Goldman Quotes
Russian
Activist
Gloria Steinem Quotes
American
Activist
Jesse Jackson Quotes
American
Activist
Julian Assange Quotes
Australian
Activist
Louis Farrakhan Quotes
American
Activist
Malala Yousafzai Quotes
Pakistani
Activist
Malcolm X Quotes
American
Activist
Michael Moore Quotes
American
Activist
Noam Chomsky Quotes
American
Activist
Peace Pilgrim Quotes
American
Activist
Shane Claiborne Quotes
American
Activist
Van Jones Quotes
American
Activist