Quotessence
Home / Authors / Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenGovernmentReligionWorldIfsReasonLibertyPoliticalPrinciplesWarBelieveAge Of ReasonMotivationPoliticsCountryMankindHumansMayAtheismNations

Famous Thomas Paine Quotes

“The most horrible wickedness and cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have troubled the human race began with this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. ... It would be far, far better for us to let a thousand devils roam the world, and publicly preach the doctrine of devils (if there were such a thing, which there isn't), than to let one impostor and monster such a Moses, Joshua, Samuel or the Bible prophets come speaking the so-called word of God, and causing men to believe it.”

IfsMenWorldBelieveHumansWould BeRaceThousandDevilMiseryMonstersHorribleDoctrineCrueltyHuman RaceProphetRevelationsWord Of GodWickednessMoses
Author:Thomas Paine
Create image

“THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD: And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man.”

MenHumansCreationInventionWord Of GodCounterfeitAge Of ReasonHuman Inventions
Book: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…
Create image

“There is something in meanness which excites a species of resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred.”

HumansHeartHighestHatredSpeciesCrueltyResentmentAgonyMeanness
Book:THE AMERICAN CRISIS – Revolutionary Work Which Inspired the American People to Fight for Their Independence: Including
Create image

“But though every created thing is, in this sense, a mystery, the word mystery cannot be applied to moral truth, any more than obscurity can be applied to light. ... Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion. Truth never envelops itself in mystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.”

HumansLightReligionMoralMysteryInventionFogObscurityDistortionAntagonistHuman Inventions
Book:The Writings of Thomas Paine
Create image

“Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.”

HumansHas BeensMadeDoneEarthValuesEvilGivenNationsNaturalLossHalfPovertyOughtSpeciesImprovementInventionProvidingInheritanceMonopolyCultivationWretchednessHuman Inventions
Book:Agrarian Justice
Create image

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

InspirationalHumansChristianPainReligionChurchAtheismMankindInstitutionsAtheistIndividualityProfitScarySeparationInventionSecularReligious FaithChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StateOur Founding FathersReligious FreedomFounding Fathers ChristianPhilosophy Of ReligionUs Founding FathersTurkishFounding Fathers ReligionSeparation Between Church And StateFounding Fathers ReligiousChristian ChurchFounding Fathers Anti ReligionFounding Fathers Of AmericaFounding AmericaAmerican Founding FathersFounding Fathers AtheistReligious PhilosophyDeismReligion And PoliticsChristian AtheistReligion ChristianChristian FatherPhilosophy And ReligionChristian RightAge Of ReasonAgainst ReligionGreatest AtheistHuman InventionsReligion PoliticsChristian Freedom
Book:The Theological Works of Thomas Paine
Create image

“The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion.”

HumansRaceAtheismMiseryPositive AtheismCrueltyHuman RaceRevelationsWickednessFounding Fathers ReligionFounding Fathers AtheistAge Of Reason
Book:The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology
Create image

“The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are themselves evidences that human language, whether in speech or print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God.”

WantHumansTogetherReligionLanguageMistakeSubjectsPossibilitySpeechEvidenceUniversalErrorsAtheistPrintProgressiveWord Of GodVehicleTranslationsAlterationsUniversal LanguagePrinterHuman LanguageMeanings Of WordsProgressive Change
Book: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…
Create image

“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?"”

MenWorldNeedsHumansHas BeensGovernmentAgeNationsRaceLibertyOughtTaxesManagementDebtLibertarianProofImprovementIgnorantHuman RaceExcessLibertarianismViciousWretchedQuarrels
Book:Thomas Paine: Collected Writings: Common Sense / The American Crisis / Rights of: (Library of America #76)
Create image

“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.”

MenHumansGovernmentFormNaturalChanceInterestingEventsConstitutionAffairConvincedWiserDeliberate
Book:Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
Create image

“The Creation speaks a universal language, independent of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this Word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.”

KnowsMenWorldHumansDoeEndsEarthLostSpeakLanguageNationsCreationDependsSpeechUniversalOriginalsIndependentVariousEvery ManWord Of GodPublishAlteredForgedUniversal LanguageHuman Language
Author:Thomas Paine
Create image

“The earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race." As the land gets cultivated, "it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is in individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground-rent..to every person, rich or poor...because it is in lieu of the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over and above the property he may have created, or inherited from those who did”

MenHumansMayPersonsStatesEarthValuesIndividualCommunityNaturalPoorMoneyCommonRaceRichLandPropertyImprovementEvery ManHuman RaceInheritanceRich Or Poor
Author:Thomas Paine
Create image