Thomas Paine Quotes

384 Sourced Quotes

All men can understand what representation is; and that it must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents.

Thomas Paine
The Allwise Creator hath been dishonored by being made the author of fable and the human mind degraded by believing it.

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

Thomas Paine
The period of debate is closed. Arms, as a last resource, must decide the contest.

Thomas Paine
To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin.

Thomas Paine
They may be all comprehended under three heads - 1st, Superstition; 2d, Power; 3d, the common interests of society, and the common rights of man.

Thomas Paine
It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there shall be no time.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
I am sensible that he who means to do mankind a real service must set down with the determination of putting up, and bearing with all their faults, follies, prejudices and mistakes until he can convince them that he is right.

Thomas Paine
And this manner of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible.

Thomas Paine
Whatever has a tendency to promote the civil intercourse of nations by an exchange of benefits is a subject as worthy of philosophy as of politics.

Thomas Paine
From whence, then, could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependant on His protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our world, because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten an apple?

Thomas Paine
Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing; and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God.

Thomas Paine
If anything had or could have a value equal to gold and silver, it would require no tender law; and if it had not that value it ought not to have such a law; and, therefore, all tender laws are tyrannical and unjust and calculated to support fraud and oppression.

Thomas Paine
Money, when considered as the fruit of many years' industry, as the reward of labor, sweat and toil, as the widow's dowry and children's portion, and as the means of procuring the necessaries and alleviating the afflictions of life, and making old age a scene of rest, has something in it sacred that is not to be sported with, or trusted to the airy bubble of paper currency.

Thomas Paine
Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system. The foundation and superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks and ever will.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
All the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man or the unity of man, as being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions.

Thomas Paine
Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and flourish best together.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of the Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation.

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

Thomas Paine
It is easy to see that when republican virtue fails, slavery ensues.

Thomas Paine
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!

Thomas Paine