This is the first of the quotes I intend to share after having completed Common Sense: 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. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence… Common Sense (AmazonClassics Edition, p.3) – Thomas Paine He is articulate, if not quite pithy, here. Government, and the resultant loss…