Thomas Paine Quotes

Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.

The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors, and the third of reason.

Government is a necessary evil

The protection of a man's person is more sacred than the protection of his property.

... in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.

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.

There exists in man a mass of sense lying in a dormant state, and which, unless something excites it to action, will descend with him, in that condition,to the grave.

Our present condition is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; a constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect independence contending for dependence.

Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance.

Therefore we say that a lying Spirit has been in the mouth of the writers of the books of the Bible.

Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.

He who takes nature for his guide, is not easily beaten out of his argument

Liberty cannot be purchased by a wish.

No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so, the prejudice will be gone.

Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it.

How strangely is antiquity treated! To answer some purposes it is spoken of as the times of darkness and ignorance, and to answer others, it is put for the light of the world.

It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself.

Commerce is no other than the traffic of two individuals, multiplied on a scale of number; and, by the same rule that Nature intended the intercourse of two, she intended that of all!

No falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an article of faith.

Truth never envelops itself in mystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.

Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off.

I would give worlds, if I had them, if The Age of Reason had never been published. O Lord, help! Stay with me! It is hell to be left alone.

It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes.

Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.

Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it.

Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind.

... a thirst for power is the natural disease of monarchy.

If the present generation, or any other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right of the succeeding generation to be free: wrongs cannot have a legal descent.

It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all.

...the true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity.

The more we bestow the richer we become.

A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose.

Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.

The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly.

Wisdom is not the purchase of a day

Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself.

Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.

Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad.

Let the world see that this nation can bear prosperity; and that her honest virtue in time of peace is equal to her bravest valor in time of war.

Man did not make the earth, and though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity, any part of it.

The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture.

Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other class of men can forgive sins and you will have sins in abundance.

Aristocracy is kept up by family tyranny and injustice.

The intimacy which is contracted in infancy, and friendship which is formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable.

We feel something like respect for consistency even in error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a vice; but the vice that affects a virtue becomes the more detestable.

The representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found.

It is a general idea, that when taxes are once laid on, they are never taken off.

Nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice.

We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest truest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

Is it because you are sunk in the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honor of your Creator, that you listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference?