Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas Painewas an English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, he authored the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he inspired the rebels in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights. He has been called "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination"...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth29 January 1736
CityThetford, England
As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
Government is best which governs least
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.
The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed.
[A]ll churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, are simply human inventions. They use fear to enslave us. They are a monopoly for power and profit.
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.
And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.