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Thomas Paine

57 quotes

“Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1772 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Case of the Officers of Excise (1772), p. 20
“This sacrifice of common sense is the certain badge which distinguishes slavery from freedom; for when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1775 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reflections on Titles", Pennsylvania Magazine (May, 1775)
“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Forester's Letters", Letter III: To Cato, Pennsylvania Journal (24 April 1776)
“A man who is so exceedingly civil that for the sake of quietude and a peaceable name will silently see the community imposed upon, or their rights invaded, may, in his principles, be a good man, but cannot be stiled a useful one, neither does he come up to the full mark of his duty; for silence becomes a kind of crime when it operates as a cover or an encouragement to the guilty.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1779 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To the People of America", Pennsylvania Packet (January 23, 1779)
“Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1780 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Public Good (Philadelphia: John Dunlap, 1780)
“War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances ... that no human wisdom can calculate the end.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prospects on the Rubicon (London: J. Debrett, 1787)
“And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1796 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to George Washington (30 July 1796)
“It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Letter: Being an Answer to a Friend, on the publication of The Age of Reason" (12 May 1797), published in an 1852 edition of The Age of Reason, p. 205
“[W]e hold, that the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty, is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance, ambition and intrigue.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1791 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address and Declaration at a Select Meeting of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty (August 20, 1791) p. 3
“We think it also necessary to express our astonishment that a government, desirous of being called , should prefer connection with the most despotic and arbitrary powers in Europe.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1791 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address and Declaration at a Select Meeting of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty (August 20, 1791) p. 5
“We live to improve, or we live in vain”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1791 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address and Declaration at a Select Meeting of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty (August 20, 1791) p. 5
“As to riots and tumults, let those answer for them, who, by willful misrepresentations, endeavor to excite and promote them; or who seek to stun the sense of the nation, and to lose the great cause of public good in the outrages of a misinformed mob. We take our ground on principles that require no such riotous aid. We have nothing to apprehend from the poor; for we are pleading their cause. And we fear not proud oppression, for we have truth on our side.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1791 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address and Declaration at a Select Meeting of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty (August 20, 1791) p. 6
“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Worship and Church Bells (1797)
“It is a want of feeling to talk of priests and bells while so many infants are perishing in the hospitals, and aged and infirm poor in the streets, from the want of necessaries.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Worship and Church Bells (1797)
“Why has the Revolution of France been stained with crimes, which the Revolution of the United States of America was not? Men are physically the same in all countries; it is education that makes them different. Accustom a people to believe that priests or any other class of men can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1797 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Worship and Church Bells (1797)
“And the final event to himself has been, that, as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are two distinct classes of men in the nation, those who pay taxes, and those who receive and live upon the taxes.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the qualification to vote is regulated by years, it is placed on the firmest possible ground, because the qualification is such as nothing but dying before the time can take away; and the equality of Rights, as a principle, is recognized in the act of regulating the exercise. But when Rights are placed upon, or made dependent upon property, they are on the most precarious of all tenures. "Riches make themselves wings, and fly away," and the rights fly with them ; and thus they become lost to the man when they would be of most value.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once. Time and reason must cooperate with each other to the final establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be first convinced have not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction operates more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the nature and intention of a constitution to prevent governing by party, by establishing a common principle that shall limit and control the power and impulse of party, and that says to all parties, thus far shalt thou go and no further. But in the absence of a constitution, men look entirely to party; and instead of principle governing party, party governs principle.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. 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.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we reflect on the long and dense night in which France and all Europe have remained plunged by their governments and their priests, we must feel less surprise than grief at the bewilderment caused by the first burst of light that dispels the darkness.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us maintain inviolably equality in the sacred right of suffrage: public security can never have a basis more solid.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men did not make the earth... It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, while so much misery is mingled in the scene.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery can be removed.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despotic government supports itself by abject civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness in the mass of the people, are the chief criterions. Such governments consider man merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty is not his privilege; that he has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them; and they politically depend more upon breaking the spirit of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by desperation.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot; it will succeed where diplomatic management would fall: it is neither the Rhine, the Channel, nor the ocean that can arrest its progress: it will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Theophilanthropists do not call themselves the disciples of such or such a man. They avail themselves of the wise precepts that have been transmitted by writers of all countries and in all ages.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Theophilanthropists believe in the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religion has two principal enemies, fanaticism and infidelity, or that which is called atheism. The first requires to be combated by reason and morality, the other by natural philosophy.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The universe is the bible of a true Theophilanthropist. It is there that he reads of God. It is there that the proofs of his existence are to be sought and to be found. As to written or printed books, by whatever name they are called, they are the works of man's hands, and carry no evidence in themselves that God is the author of any of them. It must be in something that man could not make, that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that something is the universe; the true bible; the inimitable word, of God.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The universe is composed of matter, and, as a system, is sustained by motion. Motion is not a property of matter, and without this motion the solar system could not exist. Were motion a property of matter, that undiscovered and undiscoverable thing, called perpetual motion, would establish itself. It is because motion is not a property of matter, that perpetual motion is an impossibility in the hand of every being, but that of the Creator of motion. When the pretenders to Atheism can produce perpetual motion, and not till then, they may expect to be credited.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonours the Creator, by treating the study of his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be charitable.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When at first thought we think of a creator our ideas appear to us undefined and confused; but if we reason philosophically, those ideas can be easily arranged and simplified. It is a Being, whose power is equal to his will.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1803 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Essay on the Origin of Free-Masonry (1803-1805); found in manuscript form after Paine's death and thought to have been written for an intended part III of The Age of Reason. It was partially published in 1810 and pub…
“If a man makes the press utter atrocious things he becomes as answerable for them as if he had uttered them by word of mouth. Mr. Jefferson has said in his inaugural speech, that "error of opinion might be tolerated, when reason was left free to combat it." This is sound philosophy in cases of error. But there is a difference between error and licentiousness.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1806 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Liberty of the Press (1806)
“I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spend in doing good and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1809 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last will (1809), as quoted in The Fortnightly Review, vol. 31, pp. 398–399
“Let me have none of your Popish stuff! Get away with you, good morning.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1809 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last words (June 1809), as quoted in The Fortnightly, vol. 25; vol. 31, p. 398
“I have no wish to believe on that subject.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1809 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last words (June 1809), as quoted in Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, by Christopher Hitchens (Grove Press, 2008), p. 140
“It is the duty of every man, so far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There ought to be some regulation with respect to the spirit of denunciation that now prevails. If every individual is to indulge his private malignancy or his private ambition, to denounce at random and without any kind of proof, all confidence will be undermined and all authority be destroyed. Calumny is a species of treachery that ought to be punished as well as any other kind of treachery. It is a private vice productive of public evils; because it is possible to irritate men into disaffection by continual calumny who never intended to be disaffected. It is therefore equally as necessary to guard against the evils of unfounded or malignant suspicion as against the evils of blind confidence. It is equally as necessary to protect the characters of public officers from calumny as it is to punish them for treachery or misconduct.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1793 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to George Jacques Danton (May 6, 1793)
“It is from a strange mixture of tyranny and cowardice that exclusions have been set up and continued. The boldness to do wrong at first, changes afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear. The Representatives in England appear now to act as if they were afraid to do right, even in part, lest it should awaken the nation to a sense of all the wrongs it has endured. This case serves to shew that the same conduct that best constitutes the safety of an individual, namely, a strict adherence to principle, constitutes also the safety of a Government, and that without it safety is but an empty name. When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example of 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.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The society adopts neither rites nor priesthood, and it will never lose sight of the resolution not to advance any thing as a society inconvenient to any sect or sects, in any time or country, and under any government. It will be seen that it is so much the more easy for the society to keep within this circle, because, that the dogmas of the Theophilanthropists are those upon which all the sects have agreed, that their moral is.that upon which there has never been the least dissent; and that the name they have taken expresses the double end of all the sects, that of leading to the adoration of God and love of man.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Contemplating the universe, the whole system of creation, in this point of light, we shall discover, that all that which is called natural philosophy is properly a divine study— It is the study of God through his works — It is the best study, by which we can arrive at a knowledge of the existence, and the only one by which we can gain a glimpse of his perfection. Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible Whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not written or printed books, but the Scripture called the Creation.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source