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
Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.
Is it popular to pay our debts, to do justice, to defend the injured and insulted country, to protect the aged and the infant, and give top liberty a land to live in? Then must taxation, as the means by which these things are done, be popular likewi
These are 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 now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.