The Rights of Man

"Whatever is my right as man, is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess."

Thomas Paine was one of the most influential and inspirational writers of his age. One of the Founding Fathers of America, John Adams, stated that without his writing in Common Sense, "the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."

The Rights of Man was Paine's greatest and most popular work. In this response to the French Revolution, he wrote passionately about the concepts of democracy and equality and a liberty that should be based on man's natural rights - of life, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.