Thomas Paine quotes

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.

Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

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

One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.

Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.

Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us.

It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by delay and timidity.

A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution, is power without a right.

Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.

Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society.

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.