“If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy . . . to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous . . . let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb”
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…
“It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself.”
Source: Rights of Man
“If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised.”
Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“They took care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood, and they hid from the understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know, namely, that government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.”
Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“The representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found.”
Source: The Thomas Paine Collection: Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, An Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination Of The Prophecies
“There is existing in man, a mass of sense lying in a dormant state. The construction of government ought to be such as to bring forward, by a quiet and regular operation, all that extent of capacity.”
Source: The Rights of Man
“What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.”
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…
“All men can understand what representation is; and that it must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents.”
Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“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.”
Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“Government has no right to make itself a party in any debates respecting the principles or mode of forming or of changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who exercise the powers of government, that constitutions, and the governments issuing from them, are established.”
Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected, possess afterwards, as a parliament, unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes separated from representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism.”
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
“Wisdom degenerates in governments as governments increase in age.”
Source: The Thomas Paine Collection: Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, An Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination Of The Prophecies
“"Government," says Swift, "is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many heads."”
Source: Rights of Man
“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.”
Source: The Thomas Paine Reader
“As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my purpose by any personal altercation; and the man who cannot do this, is not fit for a public character.”
Source: THE RIGHTS OF MAN: The French Revolution – Ideals, Arguments & Motives (Political Classic): Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“It is unnatural that a pure stream should flow from a foul fountain its vices are but a continuation of the vices of its origin. A man of moral honor and good political principles, cannot submit to the mean drudgery and disgraceful arts, by which such elections are carried. To be a successful candidate, he must be destitute of the qualities that constitute a just legislator: and being thus disciplined to corruption it is not to be expected that the representative should be better than the man.”
“It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.”
Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor.”
Source: Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
“It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.”
Source: The Political and Miscellaneous Works of Thomas Paine ...
“Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system. The foundation and superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks and ever will.”
Source: Selected Writings of Thomas Paine
“Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public characters.”
Source: THE RIGHTS OF MAN: The French Revolution – Ideals, Arguments & Motives (Political Classic): Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example for the poor to plunder the rich of his property, for the rights of the one are as much property to him as wealth is property to the other, and the little all is as dear as the much. It is only by setting out on just principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.”
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
“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”
Source: Common Sense, The Rights of Man and Other Essential Writings of ThomasPaine
“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”
“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Source: The Political Works of Thomas Paine: In Two Volumes
“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.”
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 strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.”
“Time makes more converts than reason.”
Source: Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.”
Source: Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
“The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.”
“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 little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.”
Source: The Rights of Man: With a Brief Historical Preface
“Those words, temperate and moderate, are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.”
Source: Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings
“Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”
Source: Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
“A single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrolled rabidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to the principles of liberty as that of a despotic monarch.”
“As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of rights. He who has robbed another of his property, will next endeavor to disarm him of his rights, to secure that property; for when the robber becomes the legislator he believes himself secure.”
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
“To live with our enemies as if they may some time become our friends, and to live with our friends as if they may some time become our enemies, is not a moral but a political maxim”
“It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt”
Source: The Political and Miscellaneous Works of Thomas Paine ...
“Government is best which governs least”
“There are two distinct classes of men - those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.”
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
