Quotes from Thomas Paine

My mind is my own church.

Those who want to reap the benefits of this great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it.

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

Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.

And this manner of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible.

War ought to be no man's wish.

The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning he blunders and betrays.

The times that tried men's souls are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.

All men can understand what representation is; and that it must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents.

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

THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD: And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man.

I disbelieve all holy men and holy books.

A man does not serve God when he prays, for it is himself he is trying to serve

There is existing in man, a mass of sense lying in a dormant state. The construction of government ought to be such as to bring forward, by a quiet and regular operation, all that extent of capacity.

Everything that is right or reasonable pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'tis time to part.

Man must go back to nature for information.

He who takes nature for his guide, is not easily beaten out of his argument

Commerce is no other than the traffic of two individuals, multiplied on a scale of number; and, by the same rule that Nature intended the intercourse of two, she intended that of all!

I die content, I die for the liberty of my country.

Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.

I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.

Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor.

Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.

Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public characters.