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
When an objection cannot be made formidable, there is some policy in trying to make it frightful; and to substitute the yell and the war-whoop, in the place of reason, argument and good order.
But in addition to all the moral evidence against the Bible, I will, in the progress of this work, produce such other evidence as even a priest cannot deny; and show, from that evidence, that the Bible is not entitled to credit, as being the word of God.
In Deism our reason and our belief are happily united.
All Of Us Might Wish At Times That We Lived In A More Tranquil World....(yet) Our Times Are Challenging And Filled With Opportunity.
Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other class of men can forgive sins and you will have sins in abundance.
It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention; it is only the application of them that is human.
As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith.
There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the 'end of time,' or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it. ... Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it.
Death is not the monarch for the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses a subject.
The aristocracy are not the farmers who work the land, and raise the produce, but are the mere consumers of the rent; and when compared with the active world, are the drones, a seraglio of males, who neither collect the honey nor form the hive, but exist only for lazy enjoyment.
A government of our own is our natural right
Kill the king but spare the man.
A bad cause will never be supported by bad means and bad men.
Though avarice will prevent a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.