Top 25 Quotes by Thomas Paine of 526 - Page 9

Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the

Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Thomas Paine

Government, Common Sense, Vices

Thomas Paine (2015). “Common Sense: and The American Crisis I”, p.15, Penguin

Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.

Thomas Paine

America, May, Mingling

Thomas Paine (1995). “Thomas Paine: Collected Writings: Common Sense / The American Crisis / Rights of: (Library of America #76)”, p.59, Library of America

The story of the redemption will not stand examination. That man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple by committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of religion ever set up.

Thomas Paine

Jesus, Men, Apples

Thomas Paine (1854). “The Works of Thomas Paine: A Hero in the American Revolution. With an Account of His Life ...”, p.248

For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.

Thomas Paine

Men, Forever, Degrees

Thomas Paine (2011). “Common Sense: With the Whole Appendix: the Address to the Quakers: Also, the Large Additions”, p.20, Cambridge University Press

It is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments.

Thomas Paine

Government, Sight, Important

Thomas Paine (2016). “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…”, p.189, e-artnow

There is a natural firmness in some minds, which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude.

Thomas Paine

Mind, Cabinets, Fortitude

Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.14

Panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstone of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might have lain forever undiscovered.

Thomas Paine

Hurt, Men, Light

Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.12

The Church was resolved to have a New Testament, and as, after the lapse of more than three hundred years, no handwriting could be proved or disproved, the Church, which like former impostors had then gotten possession of the State, had everything its own way. It invented creeds, such as that called the Apostle's Creed, the Nicean Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and out of the loads of rubbish that were presented it voted four to be Gospels, and others to be Epistles, as we now find them arranged.

Thomas Paine

Years, Religion, Church

Thomas Paine (1820). “Appendix to the Theological Works of Thomas Paine”, p.57

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.

Thomas Paine

Strength, Being Strong, Perseverance

When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir.

Thomas Paine

Country, 4th Of July, Patriotic

Thomas Paine (1877). “The crisis: a series of pamphlets in sixteen numbers, written during the American revolution”

The nearer any disease approaches to a crisis, the nearer it is to a cure. Danger and deliverance make their advances together; and it is only in the last push that one or the other takes the lead.

Thomas Paine

Together, Disease, Lasts

Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.64

Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.

Thomas Paine

Men, Guarantees, Duty

Thomas Paine (2016). “The Rights of Man”, p.78, Xist Publishing

Money, when considered as the fruit of many years' industry, as the reward of labor, sweat and toil, as the widow's dowry and children's portion, and as the means of procuring the necessaries and alleviating the afflictions of life, and making old age a scene of rest, has something in it sacred that is not to be sported with, or trusted to the airy bubble of paper currency.

Thomas Paine

Children, Mean, Years

Thomas Paine (1830). “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”, p.404

There is no greater tyranny than that of the dead over the living.

Thomas Paine

Tyranny, Greater

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.

Thomas Paine

Fashion, Believe, Men

Thomas Paine (1861). “The Age of Reason, etc”, p.88

We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.

Thomas Paine

Country, Pain, Freedom

The American Crisis, 12 Sept. 1777

To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches.

Thomas Paine

Funny, Motivation, War

Thomas Paine (1791). “Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution”, p.160

The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture.

Thomas Paine

Loss, Men, Venture

Thomas Paine (2003). “Common Sense, The Rights of Man and Other Essential Writings of ThomasPaine”, p.71, Penguin

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.

Thomas Paine

Men, Creation, Invention

Thomas Paine (2016). “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…”, p.411, e-artnow

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.

Thomas Paine

Men, Interesting, Events

Thomas Paine, John P. Kaminski (2002). “Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion”, p.67, Rowman & Littlefield

Kill the king but spare the man.

Thomas Paine

Kings, Men, He Man

Thomas Paine (2009). “The Age of Reason”, p.1, ReadHowYouWant.com

The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing.

Thomas Paine

Christian, Church, Study

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.

Thomas Paine

Truth, Honesty, Mystery

Thomas Paine (2016). “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…”, p.432, e-artnow

It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.

Thomas Paine

Motivation, Serious, Affront

Thomas Paine (1826). “An examination of the passages in the New Testament quoted from the Old and called prophecies concerning Jesus Christ. To which is prefixed, An essay on dreams. Also an appendix”, p.46

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.

Thomas Paine

Principles, Revolution, Danger

Thomas Paine (2012). “Rights of Man. Part the Second. Combining Principle and Practice”, p.5, Cambridge University Press