I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of humans; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.
THOMAS PAINEIf there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
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Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it.
THOMAS PAINE -
The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed.
THOMAS PAINE -
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
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 -
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 -
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 -
When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it.
THOMAS PAINE -
The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.
THOMAS PAINE -
A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal.
THOMAS PAINE -
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
THOMAS PAINE -
Rights are not gifts from one man to another, nor from one class of men to another. It is impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin of man; it consequently follows that rights appertain to man in right of his existence, and must therefore be equal to every man.
THOMAS PAINE -
The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Government without a constitution, is a power without a right.
THOMAS PAINE -
You cannot undermine police authority and then complain about rising crime.
THOMAS PAINE -
He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
THOMAS PAINE -
The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.
THOMAS PAINE -
Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
THOMAS PAINE -
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.
THOMAS PAINE -
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
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 -
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
THOMAS PAINE