Image of Founder Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine

February 09, 1737 - June 08, 1809
Showing Thomas Paine Quotes 21 - 30 of 47
"All men are Republicans by nature and Royalists only by fashion. And this is fully proved by that passionate adoration, which all men show to that great and almost only remaining bulwark of natural rights, trial by juries, which is founded on a pure Republican basis. Here the power of Kings is shut out. No Royal negative can enter this Court. The Jury, which is here, supreme, is a Republic, a body of Judges chosen from among the people."source: The Forester's Letters, 1776.jury duty, republic, representatives, freedom, justice, monarchy
"But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. ... let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING."source: Common Sense, 1776.kings, kingdoms, religion, god, law, justice
"For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion."source: Common Sense, 1776kings, classes of society, aristocrats, natural born rights, privileges
"I have often observed that by lending words for my thoughts I understand my thoughts the better. Thoughts are a kind of mental smoke, which require words to illuminate them."source: To Benjamin Franklin, December 31, 1785.language, understanding, journal keeping, records, clarity of thought
"We sometimes experience sensations to which language is not equal. The conception is too bulky to be born alive, and in the torture of thinking we stand dumb. Our feelings imprisoned by their magnitude, find no way out, and, in the struggle of expression, every finger tries to be a tongue."source: The Crisis, 1782.language, writing, expression, experiences, feelings
"Liberty is the power to do everything that does not interfere with the rights of others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every individual has no limits save those that assure to other members of society the enjoyment of the same rights."source: Plan of a Declaration of Rights, 1792.liberty, liberties, freedom, rights, happiness, social enjoyments
"A continual circulation of lies among those who are not much in the way of hearing them contradicted, will in time pass for truth; and the crime lies not in the believer but the inventor."source: The Crisis, 1777.lies, falsehoods, truth, belief
"The domestic tranquility of a nation, depends greatly, on the chastity of what may properly be called national manners."source: Common Sense, 1776.manners, chastity, success, peace, prosperity
"Were a man to be totally deprived of memory, he would be incapable of forming any just opinion; every thing about him would seem a chaos; he would have even his own history to ask from every one; and by not knowing how the world went on in his absence, he would be at a loss to know how it ought to be on when he recovered, or rather, returned to it again."source: The Crisis, 1777.memory, memory loss, history, mental illness
"We hold that 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, ambition and intrigue."source: Address and Declaration of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty, 1791.compassion, obligation, duty

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