Thomas Paine Quotes

Thomas Paine (64)

Birth:	29th January, 1737
Death:	8th June, 1809
Nationality:	American, British
Profession:	Activist, Author, Theorist

Related Authors

• Natan Sharansky
• Daniel Berrigan
• Peter Garrett
• Steven Biko
• David Suzuki
• Alan Lomax
• Douglas Hyde
• Kofi Annan
• Ann Druyan
• Florence Kelley

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 18th June

Births

• 1942 - Paul McCartney
• 1976 - Blake Shelton
• 1980 - Kristen Bell
• 1966 - Kurt Browning

Deaths

• 1835 - William Cobbett
• 1982 - Djuna Barnes
• 1959 - Ethel Barrymore
• 1902 - Samuel Butler
• 2009 - Ali Akbar Khan

• Character is much easier kept than recovered.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Kept, Character, Much, Reputation

• One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Religion, Uncategorized

  Tags in Good, More

• Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in God, Life

• Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Belief, God, Religion

  Tags in Cruel, Man

• 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

  Topics in Enemy

  Tags in Liberty, Oppression, Own, Make, Reach, Freedom

• Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Death

• I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Belief, Justice, Kindness, Religion, Service

  Tags in Believe, Happy, Creed, Credo

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

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Religion

  Tags in Good, Globalism, Creed, Credo

• The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. ‘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.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Conflict, Purpose, Conscience, Difficulties, Creed, Credo
• 

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

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Smile

  Tags in Reflection, Trouble, Real, Strength

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

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Expect, Like, Freedom, Men, Blessing

• It is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are defending, and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the consequences will be the same.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Enemy

  Tags in Ground, Few, Consequences, Defeat

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

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Women, Reputation, Character, Think, Angel

• It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in God

  Tags in Good, Just, Devil

• 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.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in God, Humanity, Justice

  Tags in Express, Bible, Every, Moral, Matters

• That ideas should spread freely from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Creativity

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

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Liberty, Shadow, Thinking, Men

• These are the times that try men’s souls.

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Soul

  Tags in Time, Men

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

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ethics, Evil, Reason, Thinking, Ignorance, Mind

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

  Thomas Paine

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in System, Shock, Anything, True, Mind