Thomas Paine Quotes (120 Quotes)

...it is easy to see that when the republican virtue fails, slavery ensues.

Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself that is my doctrine.

The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale

It is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be taken into consideration.

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.

And no less preeminent a champion of American independence than Thomas Paine had the following words of reproach for the Good Book 'As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions, and a history of bad times and bad men. There are but a few good characters in the whole book.'

My mind is my own church.

It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils.

It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action it begets a calamitous necessity of going on.

Of Burke As he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.

Human nature is not of itself vicious.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.

It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt.

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. '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.

If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.

From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms Through the land let the sound of it flee Let the far and the near all unite, with a cheer, In defense of our Liberty Tree.

When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous.

The adulterous connection between church and state

Not a place on earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wreangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God - as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

Burke is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.

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.

Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately.

These are the times that try men's souls.

the colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black.

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.

To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches.

And the final event to himself Mr. Burke has been, that, as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS -- our inferior one varies with the place.

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity

Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'Tis time to part.

Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness

We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily.

The United States of America will sound as pompously in the world or in history as The Kingdom of Great Britain.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men.

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