Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

Quotes

• Human nature is not of itself vicious.

• It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

• 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 always a vice.

• "What is it the Bible teaches us? - rapine, cruelty, and murder. What is it the Testament teaches us? - to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.

• Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the bible is filled, it would seem more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

• The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.

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

• To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

• I fear not, I see not reason for fear. In the end we will be the victors. For though at times the flame of liberty may cease to shine, the ember will never expire.

• What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only that gives everything its value.

• 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 always a vice.

• A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.

• But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.

• Character is much easier kept than recovered.

• From such beginnings of governments, what could be expected, but a continual system of war and extortion?

• Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

• He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.

• It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

• My mind is my own church.

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