Thomas Paine Quotes

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue but moderation in principle is always a vice.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must like men undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.

Had it been the object or the intention of Jesus Christ to establish a new religion, he would undoubtedly have written the system himself, or procured it to be written in his life time. But there is no publication extant authenticated with his name. All the books called the New Testament were written after his death. He was a Jew by birth and by profession.

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion.