Life & Wisdom Quote by Thomas Paine

Paine understands that price is a moral technology. In a single turn of phrase, he makes “cheap” feel not just economical but corrosive, and “dearness” sound like more than expense: a kind of consecration. The line is doing political work. It trains the reader to distrust bargains when the subject is liberty, self-government, and the hard disciplines of building a new society. If independence comes too easily, it won’t inspire the vigilance it requires.

The cleverness is how he smuggles a psychology lesson into a civic sermon. “Esteem” is the key verb: value isn’t only a market fact; it’s an attitude that determines whether people defend what they have. Paine is warning that rights obtained without sacrifice will be treated like disposable goods. That’s subtext aimed at complacency in the revolutionary moment, when enthusiasm can substitute for endurance and when victory can be mistaken for completion.

Context matters: writing in the age of pamphlets, he’s competing with apathy, fear, and the temptation of reconciliation. By framing cost as the source of value, he reframes suffering as investment rather than misfortune. The risk, of course, is the romanticization of hardship: “dearness” can justify unnecessary pain or turn sacrifice into a fetish. Paine’s intent isn’t to glorify misery; it’s to make commitment feel rational. A revolution, he implies, isn’t validated by lofty principles alone. It’s validated by what people are willing to pay - and therefore what they refuse to give away.