Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.
Thomas PaineWe can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.
Thomas PaineHad the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know anything of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it.
Thomas Paine