Thomas Paine Quotes

384 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

Thomas Paine
Evils, like poisons, have their uses, and there are diseases which no other remedy can reach.

Thomas Paine
It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that excessive revenues are obtained. Monarchy is well calculated to ensure this end. It is the popery of government; a thing kept up to amuse the ignorant, and quiet them into taxes.

Thomas Paine
When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.

Thomas Paine
Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches.

Thomas Paine
If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed; and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up.

Thomas Paine
"Government," says Swift, "is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many heads."

Thomas Paine
It is a position not to be controverted, that the earth... was and ever would have continued to be, the COMMON PROPERTY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
There now remain only a few books, which they call books of the lesser prophets; and as I have already shown that the greater are impostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the little ones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, the priests, and both be forgotten together.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
The graceful pride of truth knows no extremes, and preserves, in every latitude of life, the right-angled character of man.

Thomas Paine
Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.

Thomas Paine
These proceedings may at first seem strange and difficult, but like all other steps which we have already passed over, will in a little time become familiar and agreeable: and until an independence is declared, the Continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity.

Thomas Paine
It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.

Thomas Paine
The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the original system of theology.

Thomas Paine
We ought therefore to suspect that a great mass of information respecting the Bible, and the introduction of it into the world, has been suppressed by the united tyranny of Church and State, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which ought to be known.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
Wisdom degenerates in governments as governments increase in age.

Thomas Paine
The individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.

Thomas Paine
The true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity.

Thomas Paine
As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin.

Thomas Paine
The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practiced in mixed governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous, but if they require an apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment. Why, then, is man imposed upon, or why does he impose upon himself?

Thomas Paine
As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my purpose by any personal altercation; and the man who cannot do this, is not fit for a public character.

Thomas Paine
How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.

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

Thomas Paine
There is a natural firmness in some minds, which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude.

Thomas Paine