Thomas Paine QUOTES

1 " 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. "

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

― Thomas Paine

4 " The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark. "

― Thomas Paine , A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal on the Affairs of North America

5 " He who dares not offend cannot be honest. "

― Thomas Paine

6 " 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. "

― Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason

7 " The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us.

Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament of the other. "

― Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason

8 " In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear disgustful. 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 , Rights of Man

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

― Thomas Paine

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

― Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason

11 " I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. "

― Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason

12 " Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie. "

― Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason

13 " All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe. "

― Thomas Paine ,

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

― Thomas Paine , Rights of Man

15 " The difficulty of learning the dead languages does not arise from any superior abstruseness in the languages themselves, but in their being dead, and the pronunciation entirely lost. It would be the same thing with any other language when it becomes dead. The best Greek linguist that now exists does not understand Greek so well as a Grecian plowman did, or a Grecian milkmaid; and the same for the Latin, compared with a plowman or a milkmaid of the Romans; and with respect to pronunciation and idiom, not so well as the cows that she milked. It would therefore be advantageous to the state of learning to abolish the study of the dead languages, and to make learning consist, as it originally did, in scientific knowledge. "

― Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason

16 " That which is now called learning, was not learning originally. Learning does not consist, as the schools now make it consist, in the knowledge of languages, but in the knowledge of things to which language gives names. "

― Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason

17 " Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all. "

― Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason

18 " 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... "

― Thomas Paine

19 " 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; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord and cultivate predjudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable. "

― Thomas Paine , Rights of Man

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

― Thomas Paine

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