“Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”
Part 1.7 Conclusion
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)
Context: Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
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Thomas Paine 262
English and American political activist 1737–1809Related quotes

“How few philosophers are to be found who are such in character, so ordered in soul and in life, as reason demands; who regard their teaching not as a display of knowledge, but as the rule of life; who obey themselves, and submit to their own decrees!”
Quotus enim quisque philosophorum invenitur, qui sit ita moratus, ita animo ac vita constitutus, ut ratio postulat? qui disciplinam suam non ostentationem scientiae, sed legem vitae putet? qui obtemperet ipse sibi et decretis suis pareat?
Book II, Chapter IV; translation by Andrew P. Peabody
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Preponderance of Egoism, p. 137

Source: Wozu noch Philosophie? [Why still philosophy?] (1963), p. 6

“Between a tyrant and a prince there is this single or chief difference, that the latter obeys the law and rules the people by its dictates, accounting himself as but their servant.”
Est ergo tyranni et principis hæc differentia sola, quod hic legi obtemperat, et ejus arbitrio populum regit, cujus se credit ministrum.
Bk. 4, ch. 1
Policraticus (1159)

1920s, Law and Order (1920)

“To scorn the dictate of reason is to scorn the commandment of God.”
Source: Summa Theologica (1265–1274) I-II, q. 19, art. 5

“Don't reason in the mind just obey in the spirit.”
Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 85