Thomas Paine Quotes

Thomas Paine: “The word religion is a word of forced application when used with respect to the worship of God. The root of the word is the Latin verb ligo, to tie or bind. From ligo comes religo, to tie or bind over again, or make more fast--from religo comes substantive religio, which, with the addition of n makes the English substantive religion. The French use the word properly--when a woman enters a convent she is called a noviciat, that is, she is upon trial or probation. When she takes the oath, she called a religieuse, that is, she is tied or bound by that oath to the performance of it. We use the word in the same kind of sense when we say we will religiously perform the promise that we make.

But the word, without referring to its etymology, has, in the manner it is used, no definitive meaning, because it does not designate what religion a man is of. There is the religion of the Chinese, of the Tartars, of the Bramins, of the Persians, of the Jews, of the Turks, etc.”

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Thomas Paine: “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. 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. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”

This quote | Related Quotes: Belief Quotes, Christianity Quotes, Faith Quotes, Hypocrisy Quotes, Integrity/Individuality Quotes, Religion Quotes, Religious Freedom Quotes, Thomas Paine Quotes

Thomas Paine: “ I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.”

This quote | Related Quotes: Belief Quotes, Creed/Credo Quotes, Equality Quotes, Good Quotes, Heaven Quotes, Justice Quotes, Kindness Quotes, Religion Quotes, Service Quotes, Thomas Paine Quotes

Thomas Paine: “The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it. That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age, may be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another. In such cases, who is to decide, the living, or the dead?”

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Thomas Paine: “The remark of the Emperor Julian, on the story of The Tree of Knowledge, is worth observing. 'If,' said he, 'there ever had been, or could be, a Tree of Knowledge, instead of God forbidding man to eat thereof, it would be that of which he would order him to eat the most.'”

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Thomas Paine: “Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.--Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection. From this short review it will be easy to distinguish between that class of natural rights which man retains after entering into society, and those which he throws into common stock as a member of society. The natural rights which he retains, are all those in which the power to execute is as perfect in the individual as the right itself. Among this class, as is before mentioned, are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind; consequently, religion is one of those rights. The natural rights which are not retained, are all those in which, though the right is perfect in the individual, the power to execute them is defective. They answer not his purposes. A man by natural right has a right to judge in his own cause; and so far as the right of the mind is concerned, he never surrenders it; but what availeth it him to judge, if he has not power to redress it? He therefore deposits this right in the common stock of society, and takes the arm of society, of which he is a part, in preference and in addition to his own. Society grants him nothing. Every man is a proprietor in society, and draws on the capital as a matter of right.”

This quote | Related Quotes: Freedom Quotes, Human Rights Quotes, Integrity/Individuality Quotes, Thomas Paine Quotes

Thomas Paine: “The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is, that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do not go the whole way. They stop in some of the intermediate stages of an hundred or a thousand years, and produce what was then done as a rule for the present day. This is no authority at all. If we travel still further into antiquity, we shall find a directly contrary opinion and practice prevailing; and, if antiquity is to be authority, a thousand such authorities may be produced, successively contradicting each other: but if we proceed on, we shall at last come out right: we shall come to the time when man came from the hand of his maker. What was he then? Man. Man was his high and only title, and a higher cannot be given him.”

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Thomas Paine: “That ideas should spread freely from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.”

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Thomas Paine: “We hold the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance.”

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Thomas Paine: “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”

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Thomas Paine: “The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.”

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Thomas Paine: “Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with with infinitely more advantage than any victory with all its expense.”

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Thomas Paine: “The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.”

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Thomas Paine: “If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”

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Thomas Paine: “My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”

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Thomas Paine: “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”

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Thomas Paine: “Time makes more converts than reason.”

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Thomas Paine: “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of humans; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.”

This quote | Related Quotes: Religion Quotes, Thomas Paine Quotes

Thomas Paine: “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”

This quote | Related Quotes: Ethics Quotes, Evil Quotes, Ignorance Quotes, Mind Quotes, Reason Quotes, Thinking Quotes, Thomas Paine Quotes

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