More Quotes by Thomas Paine
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
Christianity is the strangest religion ever set up, for it committed a murder upon Jesus in order to redeem mankind from the sin of eating an apple.
The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.
No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power; and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people.
There are two distinct classes of men - those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.
It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.
Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.
