“Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.”
“The idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet-laureat.”
“The people of America are a people of property; almost every man is a freeholder.”
“In the progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life, we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but frequently neglect to gather up experiences as we go.”
Source: Brief sketch of the life of Thomas Paine. Common sense. Epistle to Quakers. The crisis. Public good. Letter to the Abbe Raynal. Dissertations on government, the affairs of the bank, and paper money. Miscellaneous
“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
“Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”
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…
“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…
“Time makes more converts than reason.”
Source: Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
“'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”
Source: Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
“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
“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
“How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.”
Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“To take away (voting) is to reduce a man to slavery.”
