I've been catching up :P
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1776 – Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense.
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Love that man's writing. His work is eminently quotable.
My favourite two passages from Common Sense:
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O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
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As a mission statement for the early United States it's pretty awesome.
And this one, on the origin of the British crown:
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A French bastard, landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it.
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