Thomas Paine Quotes

Time makes more converts than reason.

Tüm dini kurumlar, vahiy veya Tanrı kelamı adını verdikleri kutsal kitaplara sahiptir. Yahudiler, Tanrı Kelamları'nın Musa'ya Tanrı tarafından yüz yüze iletildiğini; Hıristiyanlar kendi Tanrı Kelamları'nın kutsal esinlenme yoluyla; Müslümanlar da Tanrı Kelamları'nın (Kuran) cennetten gelen bir melek tarafından indirildiğini söylemektedirler. Tüm bu farklı dini kurumlar birbirlerini imansızlıkla suçlamaktadırlar, bense bunların hiçbirine inanmıyorum.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.

But when the 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.

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

All their wishes centred in one, which was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive the enemy back.

The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.

It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government.

All the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man, on the unity of man, as being all of one degree. whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions.

The representative system diffuses such a body of knowledge throughout a nation, on the subject of government, as to explode ignorance and preclude imposition. The craft of courts cannot be acted on that ground. There is no place for mystery; nowhere for it to begin. Those who are not in the representation, know as much of the nature of business as those who are. An affectation of mysterious importance would there be scouted. nations can have no secrets; and the secrets of courts, like those of individuals, are always their defects.

In the representative system, the reason for everything must publicly appear. Every man is a proprietor in government, and considers it a necessary part of his business to understand. It concerns his interest, because it affects his property. He examines the cost, and compares it with the advantages; and above all, he does not adopt the slavish custom of following what in other governments are called Leaders.

It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that excessive revenues are obtained. Monarchy is well calculated to ensure this end. It is the popery of government; a thing kept up to amuse the ignorant, and quiet them into taxes.

The government of a free country, properly speaking, is not in the persons, but in the laws. The enacting of those requires no great expense; and when they are administered, the whole of civil government is performed - the rest is all court contrivance.

There are certain circumstances, which, at the time of their happening, are a kind of riddles, and as every riddle is to be followed by its answer, so those kind of circumstances will be followed by their events, and those events are always the true solution. A considerable space of time may lapse between, and unless we continue our observations from the one to the other, the harmony of them will pass away unnoticed: but the misfortune is, that partly from the pressing necessity of some instant things, and partly from the impatience of our own tempers, we are frequently in such a hurry to make out the meaning of everything as fast as it happens, that we thereby never truly understand it; and not only start new difficulties to ourselves by so doing, but, as it were, embarrass Providence in her good designs.

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.

To argue with a person who has renounced
the use of reason is like administering
medicine to the dead.

The society adopts neither rites nor priesthood, and it will never lose sight of the resolution not to advance any thing as a society inconvenient to any sect or sects, in any time or country, and under any government. It will be seen that it is so much the more easy for the society to keep within this circle, because, that the dogmas of the Theophilanthropists are those upon which all the sects have agreed, that their moral is.that upon which there has never been the least dissent; and that the name they have taken expresses the double end of all the sects, that of leading to the adoration of God and love of man.