Thomas Paine Quotes

384 Sourced Quotes

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

Thomas Paine
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...

Thomas Paine
But there are times when men have serious thoughts, and it is at such times, when they begin to think, that they begin to doubt the truth of the Christian religion; and well they may, for it is too fanciful and too full of conjecture, inconsistency, improbability and irrationality, to afford consolation to the thoughtful man. His reason revolts against his creed. He sees that none of its articles are proved, or can be proved.

Thomas Paine
The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles, related in the New Testament, is that of the devil flying away with Jesus Christ, and carrying him to the top of a high mountain; and to the top of the highest pinnacle of the temple, and showing him and promising to him all the kingdoms of the world. How happened it that he did not discover America? or is it only with kingdoms that his sooty highness has any interest.

Thomas Paine
The case, however, is, that the Bible will not bear examination in any part of it, which it would do if it was the Word of God. Those who most believe it are those who know least about it, and priests always take care to keep the inconsistent and contradictory parts out of sight.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy... to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous... let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb

Thomas Paine
Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.

Thomas Paine
Practical religion consists in doing good: and the only way of serving God is that of endeavoring to make His creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is nonsense and hypocrisy.

Thomas Paine
What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.

Thomas Paine
The mind, in discovering truths, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it.

Thomas Paine
The Almighty implanted in us these inextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of His image in our heart. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals.

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

Thomas Paine
The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning he blunders and betrays.

Thomas Paine
I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God.

Thomas Paine
Government has no right to make itself a party in any debates respecting the principles or mode of forming or of changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who exercise the powers of government, that constitutions, and the governments issuing from them, are established.

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

Thomas Paine
The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax

Thomas Paine
Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, admitted, or denied.

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

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

Thomas Paine
They took care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood, and they hid from the understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know, namely, that government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.

Thomas Paine
Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death, and religiosu wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man?

Thomas Paine
Action and care will in time wear down the strongest frame, but guilt and melancholy are poisons of quick dispatch.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.

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

Thomas Paine