Thomas Paine Quotes

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not.

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.

The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.

The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy.

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.

The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.

There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice.

There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.

These are the times that try men's souls.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

Time makes more converts than reason.

'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.

Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title.

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.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.

Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.

That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.

That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.

The abilities of man must fall short on one side or the other, like too scanty a blanket when you are abed. If you pull it upon your shoulders, your feet are left bare; if you thrust it down to your feet, your shoulders are uncovered.

My mind is my own church.