Thomas Paine > Quotes

“The world is my country,
all mankind are my brethren,
and to do good is my religion.”
― Thomas Paine

“Attempting to debate with a person who has abandoned reason is like giving medicine to the dead.”
― Thomas Paine

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
― Thomas Paine

“Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.”
― Thomas Paine

“Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself - that is my doctrine.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
― Thomas Paine

“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.”
― Thomas Paine

“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”
― Thomas Paine

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”
― Thomas Paine

“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in the crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

“The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.”
― Thomas Paine

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.”
― Thomas Paine

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
― Thomas Paine, The Crisis

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”
― Thomas Paine

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
― Thomas Paine

“Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.”
― Thomas Paine

“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.”
― Thomas Paine

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.”
― Thomas Paine

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”
― Thomas Paine

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
― Thomas Paine

“I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.”
― Thomas Paine

“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. ”
― Thomas Paine

“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”
― Thomas Paine, Works of Thomas Paine

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
― Thomas Paine

“Time makes more converts than reason.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“What we obtainly too cheap, we esteem too lightly. 'Tis dearness only that gives everything it's value. ”
― Thomas Paine

“That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true...”
― Thomas Paine

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
― Thomas Paine

“Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. ”
― Thomas Paine

“Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
― Thomas Paine

“My own mind is my own church.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“These are the times that try men's souls.”
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

“Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie. ”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”
― Thomas Paine

“One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured”
― Thomas Paine

“Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.”
― Thomas Paine

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”
― Thomas Paine

“All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.”
― Thomas Paine

“The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind.”
― Thomas Paine

“Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.”
― Thomas Paine, The Crisis

“قهر الإستبداد ليس بالأمر السهل , ولكن ما يعَزينا أنه كلما اشتد الصراع قسوة ...كلما ازداد النصر مجدًا”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense