The Age Of Reason Quotes

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

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

“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

“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

“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

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

“Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“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

“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

“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

“It was needless, after this, to say that all was vanity and vexation of spirit; for it is impossible to derive happiness from the company of those whom we deprive of happiness. ”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True & Fabulous Theology

“Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“The Almighty Lecturer, by displaying the principles of science in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to imitation. It is as if He has said to the inhabitants of this globe that we call ours, "I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, and I have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science and the arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, and learn from my munificence to all to be kind to each other.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

“It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication; after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.”
― Thomas Paine, Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of the True and Fabulous Theology

“But the resurrection of a dead person from the grave, and his ascension through the air, is a thing very different, as to the evidence it admits of, to the invisible conception of a child in the womb. The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have taken place, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon day, to all Jerusalem at least. A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal; and as the public visibility of this last related act was the only evidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole of it falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection; and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I; and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason

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

“absurdity”
― Thomas Paine, The Age Of Reason