“Thomas Paine had come to believe that religion was the worst form of tyranny because it pursued you through death and into eternity – something no king or despot had yet managed to do. At last, Marcus settled on repeating something Thomas himself had written. “ ‘My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”

“Thomas Paine had come to believe that religion was the worst form of tyranny because it pursued you through death and into eternity – something no king or despot had yet managed to do. At last, Marcus settled on repeating something Thomas himself had written. “ ‘My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”

— Deborah Harkness