Thomas Paine

These are the times that try men’s souls.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

To reason with governments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes.

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.

Time makes more converts than reason.

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.

I did not see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it.

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.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil;

How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!

In short, you have managed your Jersey expedition so very dexterously, that the dead only are conquerors, because none will dispute the ground with them.

Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born⁠—a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing?

It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself.

It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry.

The nearer any government approaches to a republic the less business there is for a king.

Britain was too jealous of America to govern it justly; too ignorant of it to govern it well; and too far distant from it to govern it at all.

I cannot dishonour my Creator by calling it by his name.

A vast mass of mankind are degradedly thrown into the background of the human picture, to bring forward, with greater glare, the puppet-show of state and aristocracy.

How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!

Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America.