Thomas Paine Quotes

384 Sourced Quotes

Statues of marble or brass will perish; and statues made in imitation of them are not the same statues,... But print and reprint a thought a thousand times over, and that with materials of any kind... the thought is eternally and identically the same thought in every case.

Thomas Paine
The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.

Thomas Paine
Titles are but nick-names, and every nick-name is a title.

Thomas Paine
Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.
A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.

Thomas Paine
If the slavery of the parents be unjust, much more is their children's; if the parents were justly slaves, yet the children are born free; this is the natural, perfect right of all mankind; they are nothing but a just recompense to those who bring them up: And as much less is commonly spent on them than others, they have a right, in justice, to be proportionably sooner free.

Thomas Paine
Giving then to matter all the properties which philosophy knows it has, or all that atheism ascribes to it, and can prove, and even supposing matter to be eternal, it will not account for the system of the universe or of the solar system, because it will not account for motion, and it is motion that preserves it. When, therefore, we discover a circumstance of such immense importance, that without it the universe could not exist, and for which neither matter, nor any, nor all, the properties of matter can account, we are by necessity forced into the rational and comfortable belief of the existence of a cause superior to matter, and that cause man calls, God.

Thomas Paine
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.

Thomas Paine
Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority; perfect equality affords no temptation.

Thomas Paine
Wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for God's sake let us come to a final separation.

Thomas Paine
All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny…To inherit a government, is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and herds.

Thomas Paine
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

Thomas Paine
But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.

Thomas Paine
The times that tried men's souls are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.

Thomas Paine
And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man.

Thomas Paine
A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.

Thomas Paine
Small islands not capable of protecting themselves are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.

Thomas Paine
Could the peaceable principle of the Quakers be universally established, arms and the art of war would be wholly extirpated: But we live not in a world of angels...I am thus far a Quaker, that I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms, and settle matters by negotiation: but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank Heaven He has put it in my power.

Thomas Paine
No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of it being right.

Thomas Paine
We repose an unwise confidence in any government, or in any men, when we invest them officially with too much, or an unnecessary quantity of, discretionary power.

Thomas Paine
Most shocking of all is alledging the Sacred Scriptures to favour this wicked practice. One would have thought none but infidel cavillers would endeavour to make them appear contrary to the plain dictates of natural light, and Conscience, in a matter of common Justice and Humanity; which they cannot be. Such worthy men, as referred to before, judged otherways; Mr. BAXTER declared, the Slave-Traders should be called Devils, rather than Christians; and that it is a heinous crime to buy them. But some say, "the practice was permitted to the Jews." To which may be replied,

Thomas Paine
As these people are not convicted of forfeiting freedom, they have still a natural, perfect right to it; and the Governments whenever they come should, in justice set them free, and punish those who hold them in slavery.

Thomas Paine
Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect that his mind was forever young, his temper ever serene; science, that never grows gray, was always his mistress. He was never without an object, for when we cease to have an object, we become like an invalid in a hospital waiting for death.

Thomas Paine
An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot; it will succeed where diplomatic management would fall: it is neither the Rhine, the Channel, nor the ocean that can arrest its progress: it will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer.

Thomas Paine
Every principal art has some science for its parent, though the person who mechanically performs the work does not always, and but very seldom, perceive the connection.

Thomas Paine
The universe is composed of matter, and, as a system, is sustained by motion. Motion is not a property of matter, and without this motion the solar system could not exist. Were motion a property of matter, that undiscovered and undiscoverable thing, called perpetual motion, would establish itself. It is because motion is not a property of matter, that perpetual motion is an impossibility in the hand of every being, but that of the Creator of motion. When the pretenders to Atheism can produce perpetual motion, and not till then, they may expect to be credited.

Thomas Paine
Many of these were not prisoners of war, and redeemed from savage conquerors, as some plead; and they who were such prisoners, the English, who promote the war for that very end, are the guilty authors of their being so; and if they were redeemed, as is alleged, they would owe nothing to the redeemer but what he paid for them.

Thomas Paine
To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.

Thomas Paine
Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.

Thomas Paine
Aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the human species.

Thomas Paine
So monstrous is the making and keeping them slaves at all, abstracted from the barbarous usage they suffer, and the many evils attending the practice; as selling husbands away from wives, children from parents, and from each other, in violation of sacred and natural ties; and opening the way for adulteries, incests, and many shocking consequences, for all of which the guilty Masters must answer to the final Judge.

Thomas Paine