Quotes from Thomas Paine

Governments arise either out of the people or over the people.

It is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments.

Government is a necessary evil

Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.

It was needless, after this, to say that all was vanity and vexation of spirit; for it is impossible to derive happiness from the company of those whom we deprive of happiness.

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

The United States of America will sound as pompously in the world or in history as The Kingdom of Great Britain.

How strangely is antiquity treated! To answer some purposes it is spoken of as the times of darkness and ignorance, and to answer others, it is put for the light of the world.

The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.

When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice.

...the true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity.

Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind.

The world is my country all mankind are my brethren and to do good is my religion.

He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.

But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?

Our present condition is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; a constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect independence contending for dependence.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

... a thirst for power is the natural disease of monarchy.

We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest truest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

They may be all comprehended under three heads - 1st, Superstition; 2d, Power; 3d, the common interests of society, and the common rights of man.

It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.

Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.

It is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be taken into consideration.