Thomas Paine Quotes
The world is my country,
all mankind are my brethren,
and to do good is my religion.
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
My own mind is my own church.
Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself - that is my doctrine.
An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
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.
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice.
If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.
Attempting to debate with a person who has abandoned reason is like giving medicine to the dead.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Virtues are acquired through endeavor, Which rests wholly upon yourself. So, to praise others for their virtues can but encourage one's own efforts.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
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.
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.
These are the times that try men's souls.
One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
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.
Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention; it is only the application of them that is human. Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.
I do not choose to be a common man,
It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,
I seek opportunity … not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen.
Humbled and dulled by having the
State look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk;
To dream and to build.
To fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;
I prefer the challenges of life
To the guaranteed existence;
The thrill of fulfillment
To the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence
Nor my dignity for a handout
I will never cower before any master
Nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect.
Proud and unafraid;
To think and act for myself,
To enjoy the benefit of my creations
And to face the world boldly and say:
This, with God’s help, I have done
All this is what it means
To be an Entrepreneur.
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
Let them call me rebel, and welcome; I feel no concern from it. For I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.
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.
We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.
Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.
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.
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.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.
Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true.
The obscene and vulgar stories in the Bible are as repugnant to our ideas of the purity of a Divine Being, as the horrid cruelties and murders it ascribes to Him are repugnant to our ideas of His justice.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.
The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
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.
Human nature is not of itself vicious.
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
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 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.