“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one;”

—  Thomas Paine

1770s, Common Sense (1776)
Context: Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

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Thomas Paine 262
English and American political activist 1737–1809

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