“The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed.”
Source: A Letter to the Honourable T. Erskine [the Counsel for the Crown] on the prosecution of T. Williams, for publishing
“It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality of rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves.”
Source: The political and miscellaneous works of Thomas Paine
“When I contemplate the natural dignity of man; when I feel (for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honor and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon.”
Source: The Rights of Man: With a Brief Historical Preface
“The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.”
“Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage than any victory with all its expence.”
Source: Rights of Man, Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution... by T. Paine...
“Each government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of government.”
“It is for the good of nations, and not for the emolument or aggrandizement of particular individuals, that government ought to be established, and that mankind are at the expense of supporting it. The defects of every government and constitution both as to principle and form, must, on a parity of reasoning, be as open to discussion as the defects of a law, and it is a duty which every man owes to society to point them out.”
Source: Paine: Political Writings
“Compassion, the fairest associate of the heart.”
Source: The Political Writings of Thomas Paine: Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the American Revolution : to which is Prefixed a Brief Sketch of the Author's Life
“Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.”
Source: The Thomas Paine Reader
“He, who survives his reputation, lives out of despite himself, like a man listening to his own reproach.”
Source: THE AMERICAN CRISIS – Revolutionary Work Which Inspired the American People to Fight for Their Independence: Including
“Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority; perfect equality affords no temptation.”
Source: Paine: Political Writings
“Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.”
Source: COMMON SENSE (Political Classics Series): Advocating Independence to People in the Thirteen Colonies - Addressed to the Inhabitants of America
“The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.”
Source: Common Sense: and The American Crisis I
“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.”
“The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.”
Source: THE AGE OF REASON - Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology (Including
“Of all the tyrannies that effect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity.”
Source: The life and major writings of Thomas Paine
“It is a faculty of the human mind to become what it contemplates, and to act in unison with its object.”
Source: The Rights of Man
“When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.”
Source: The Age of Reason, etc
“He 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.”
“There is something in corruption which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself to the object it looks upon, and sees everything stained and impure.”
Source: Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
“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.”
Source: The American Crisis
“Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?"”
Source: Thomas Paine: Collected Writings: Common Sense / The American Crisis / Rights of: (Library of America #76)
“The mere man of pleasure is miserable in old age, and the mere drudge in business is but little better, whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure, and in spite of the gloomy dogmas of priests and of superstition, the study of these things is the true theology; it teaches man to know and admire the Creator, for the principles of science are in the creation, and are unchangeable and of divine origin.”
Source: The age of reason
“In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and repossession, and suffer his reason and feelings to determine for themselves; and that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of man, and generously enlarge his view beyond the present day.”
“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.”
Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.”
Source: THE AGE OF REASON - Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology (Including
“I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel.”
“And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man.”
Source: The age of reason
“The prejudice of unfounded belief often degenerates into the prejudice of custom, and becomes at last rank hypocrisy. When men, from custom or fashion or any worldly motive, profess or pretend to believe what they do not believe, nor can give any reason for believing, they unship the helm of their morality, and being no longer honest to their own minds they feel no moral difficulty in being unjust to others.”
Source: The Age of Reason, etc
“...It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Paine
“Arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order.”
Source: Selected Writings of Thomas Paine
“The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world not destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside ... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them ... the weak will become prey to the strong.”
Source: Selected Writings of Thomas Paine
“In a chariot of light from the region of the day, the Goddess of Liberty came. She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, the plant she named Liberty Tree.”
“A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution is power without a right. All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are not other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either.”
Source: Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings
“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.”
Source: THOMAS PAINE Ultimate Collection: Political Works, Philosophical Writings, Speeches, Letters & Biography (Including Common Sense, The Rights of Man & The Age of Reason): The American Crisis, The Constitution of 1795, Declaration of Rights, Agrarian Justice, The Republican Proclamation, Anti-Monarchal Essay, Letters to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington…
“The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.”
Source: The Political Writings of Thomas Paine ...: Prospects on the Rubicon. Rights of man, part I. Rights of man, part II. Letter to the authors of the Republican. Letter to the Abbe Sieyes. Address to the addressers. Letters to Lord Onslow. Dissertation on the first principles of government. Speech delivered in the French National convention. Letter to Mr. Secretary Dundas. The decline and fall of the English system of finance. Letter to the people of France. Reasons for preserving the life of Louis
“A government of our own is our natural right; and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance.”
Source: Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
“Ye that dare oppose, not only tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!”
Source: The Works of Thomas Paine: A Hero in the American Revolution. With an Account of His Life ...
“Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.”
“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.”
“The danger to which the success of revolutions is most exposed, is that of attempting them before the principles on which they proceed, and the advantages to result from them, are sufficiently seen and understood.”
Source: Rights of Man. Part the Second. Combining Principle and Practice
“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.”
“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.”
Source: Miscellaneous poems of that noble of nature, Thomas Paine
“It is a fool only, and not the philosopher, nor even the prudent man, that will live as if there were no God... Were a man impressed as fully and strongly as he ought to be with the belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the force of belief; he would stand in awe of God and of himself, and would not do the thing that could not be concealed from either.”
Source: The Thomas Paine Collection: Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, An Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination Of The Prophecies
“The times that tried men's souls are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.”
Source: The Crisis: A Work Written While with the Army of the Revolution, with a View of Stimulating that Patriotic Band to Persevere in Their Glorious Struggle for the Rights of Man
“The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.”
Source: The Thomas Paine Collection: Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, An Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination Of The Prophecies
“Now is the seedtime of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now, will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters.”
Source: The Essential 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.”
Source: The American Crisis
“Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.”
Source: Paine: Political Writings
“I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state; up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake.”
Source: Paine: Political Writings
