“It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing.”

— Thomas Paine , book The Age of Reason

1790s, The Age of Reason, Part I (1794)
Context: It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication. After this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

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Thomas Paine 262

English and American political activist 1737–1809

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Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. 174
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“Let us get rid of the idea of power from law altogether. Call law tabulation of facts, expression of facts, or what you will; anything rather than suppose that it either explains or compels.”

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“It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing.”

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