Thomas Paine Quotes, Status, and Thoughts
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.
The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.
You cannot undermine police authority and then complain about rising crime.
He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.
It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.
The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.
Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
Reason obeys itself, and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves.
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
There are two distinct classes of men - those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.
The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
Men should not petition for rights, but take them
It is error only, and not the truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
Virtue is not hereditary.
The strength and power of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resistance.
An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.