773 Quotes by Thomas Paine

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.

Character is much easier kept than recovered.

Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying

Character is much easier kept than recovered, and that man, if any such there be, who, from sinister views, or littleness of soul, lends unseen his hand to injure it, contrives a wound it will never be in his power to heal.

The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.

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.

Kill the king but spare the man.

A hereditary monarch is as absurd a position as a hereditary doctor or mathematician.