Thomas Paine Quotes

The world is my country, 
all mankind are my brethren, 
and to do good is my religion.

Thomas Paine

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.

Thomas Paine

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. 

Thomas Paine

My own mind is my own church.

Thomas Paine

Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself - that is my doctrine.

Thomas Paine

An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot. 

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

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.

Thomas Paine

If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately. 

Thomas Paine

Attempting to debate with a person who has abandoned reason is like giving medicine to the dead.

Thomas Paine

Lead, follow, or get out of the way. 

Thomas Paine

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. 

Thomas Paine

Virtues are acquired through endeavor, Which rests wholly upon yourself. So, to praise others for their virtues can but encourage one's own efforts.

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

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

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

Thomas Paine

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.

Thomas Paine

These are the times that try men's souls.

Thomas Paine

One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.

Thomas Paine

It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.

Thomas Paine

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.

Thomas Paine

Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

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

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. 

Thomas Paine

Character is much easier kept than recovered.

Thomas Paine

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.  

Thomas Paine

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.

Thomas Paine

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.

Thomas Paine

The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. 

Thomas Paine

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.

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

We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities. 

Thomas Paine

Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. 

Thomas Paine

Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities. 

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

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

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. 

Thomas Paine

Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true. 

Thomas Paine

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.

Thomas Paine

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon. 

Thomas Paine

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.

Thomas Paine

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. 

Thomas Paine

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. 

Thomas Paine

The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.

Thomas Paine

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.

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

Human nature is not of itself vicious.

Thomas Paine

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

Thomas Paine

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.

Thomas Paine

The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.

Thomas Paine

Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. 

Thomas Paine

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. 

Thomas Paine

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. 

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 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

Thomas Paine Biography

Born: February 9, 1737
Died: June 8, 1809

Thomas Paine was an American author, inventor, intellectual. He is most commonly known as being one of the Founding Father of the United States.