Thomas Paine Quotes
It is a faculty of the human mind to become what it contemplates, and to act in unison with its object.
The moral duty of man consists of imitatingthe moral goodness and beneficence of God,manifested in the creation, toward all His creatures.
In the progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life, we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but frequently neglect to gather up experiences as we go.
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
The greatest characters the world has known, have rose on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy.
A man will pass better through the world with a thousand open errors upon his back than in being detected in one sly falsehood. When one is detected, a thousand are suspected.
When an objection cannot be made formidable, there is some policy in trying to make it frightful; and to substitute the yell and the war-whoop, in the place of reason, argument and good order.
If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin.
To live with our enemies as if they may some time become our friends, and to live with our friends as if they may some time become our enemies, is not a moral but a political maxim
It may perhaps be said that it signifies nothing to a man what is done to him after he is dead; but it signifies much to the living; it either tortures their feelings or hardens their hearts.
They may be all comprehended under three heads - 1st, Superstition; 2d, Power; 3d, the common interests of society, and the common rights of man.
Thus commerce, though in itself a moral nullity, has had a considerable influence in tempering the human mind....he trades with the same countries ...(that he) would have gone to war with.
It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.
"Government," says Swift, "is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many heads."
Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and tho' avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.
When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous.
Titles are like a magicians wand which circumscribe human facility and prevent us from living the lives of man.
As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith.
When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.
We must be compelled to hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and new law called the Old and new Testament, to be impositions, fables and forgeries
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
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...
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.
Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us?
For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
Common sense will tell us, thatthe power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, themost improper to defend us.
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.
Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.
Every child born in the world must be considered as deriving its existence from God. The world is this new to him as it was to the first that existed, and his natural right in it is of the same kind.
Calumny is a vice of curious constitution trying to kill it keeps it alive leave it to itself and it will die a natural death.
Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one.
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must like men undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
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.
The harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly 'tis dearness only that gives everything it's value.
The harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value.
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.