{ }
Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
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.
I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book [the Bible].
The world is my country, all mankind are my bethren, and to do good is my religion.
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.
We have it in our power to change the world over.
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.
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.
My mind is my own church.
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice.
The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.
Time makes more converts than reason.
It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
That government is best which governs least.
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
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.