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
It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God.
A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose.
If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised.
They took care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood, and they hid from the understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know, namely, that government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.
You cannot undermine police authority and then complain about rising crime.
Liberty cannot be purchased by a wish.
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.
The representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found.
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.
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.
Let them call me rebel, I feel no concern from it.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.