Thomas Paine Quotes

“And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship 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.”

“I am sensible that he who means to do mankind a real service must set down with the determination of putting up, and bearing with all their faults, follies, prejudices and mistakes until he can convince them that he is right.”

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”

“It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality of rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves.”

“It will be proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments have arisen, and on which they have been founded.”

“Every proprietor owes to the community a ground-rent for the land which he holds.”

“The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practiced in mixed governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous, but if they require an apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment. Why, then, is man imposed upon, or why does he impose upon himself?”

“It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt”

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”

“It may perhaps be said that it signifies nothing to a man what is done to him after he is dead; but it signifies much to the living; it either tortures their feelings or hardens their hearts.”

“When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir.”

“But such is the irresistable nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.”

“That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true.”

“War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.”

“No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond; and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance.”

“It is a faculty of the human mind to become what it contemplates, and to act in unison with its object.”

“The protection of a man's person is more sacred than the protection of his property.”

“If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy . . . to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous . . . let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb”

“Customs will often outlive the remembrance of their origin.”

“It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.”

“A government of our own is our natural right”

“He, who survives his reputation, lives out of despite himself, like a man listening to his own reproach.”

“Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable. It has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties.”

“It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.”

“There is no greater tyranny than that of the dead over the living.”