Thomas Paine Quotes

"I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace."

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

"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

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

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

"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture."

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

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

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it."

"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."

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."

"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."

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

"'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."

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value."

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

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

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

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again."

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

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

"He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."

"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."

"Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true."

"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe."

"An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot."

"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."

"Those who want to reap the benefits of this great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it."

"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon."

"These are the times that try men's souls."