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Life
He defended liberty and reviled the French Revolution in the same breath, and so fathered modern conservatism.
The corset-maker turned revolutionary whose pamphlets set two continents on fire, arguing in plain words that government rests on the consent of the living.
Connection
Edmund Burke answered by Thomas Paine — Paine wrote the Rights of Man in direct answer to Burke's Reflections, defending the revolution Burke condemned.
Ideas
Words
“Society is a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
“These are the times that try men's souls.”
Key Moments
1729 CE
Born in Dublin
1775 CE
Speech on Conciliation
1790 CE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
1797 CE
Death near London
1737 CE
Born in England
1776 CE
Common Sense
1791 CE
Rights of Man
1794 CE
The Age of Reason
Works
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Common Sense