These are the times that try men’s souls.
THOMAS PAINEAn army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
-
-
I consider the war of America against Britain as the country’s war, the public’s war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, for the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their own property.
THOMAS PAINE -
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
THOMAS PAINE -
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
THOMAS PAINE -
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
THOMAS PAINE -
Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable. It has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties.
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 -
Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
THOMAS PAINE -
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
THOMAS PAINE -
The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle than the creation itself, and his own existence?
THOMAS PAINE -
Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.
THOMAS PAINE -
A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right.
THOMAS PAINE -
If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves.
THOMAS PAINE -
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
THOMAS PAINE -
A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
THOMAS PAINE -
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.
THOMAS PAINE -
Christianity is the strangest religion ever set up, for it committed a murder upon Jesus in order to redeem mankind from the sin of eating an apple.
THOMAS PAINE -
The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
THOMAS PAINE -
Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.
THOMAS PAINE -
For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
THOMAS PAINE -
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.
THOMAS PAINE -
Virtue is not hereditary.
THOMAS PAINE -
Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
THOMAS PAINE -
Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property… Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.
THOMAS PAINE -
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.
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 -
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
THOMAS PAINE