Quote

It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

Thomas Paine

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas Paine
Age: 72 †
Born: 1737
Born: January 29
Died: 1809
Died: June 8
Author
Entrepreneur
Journalist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Politician
Prosaist
Writer
Thetford
Norfolk
Happiness
Mentally
Doe
Consists
Believe
Believing
Men
Faithful
Integrity
Disbelieving
Motivation
Professing
Necessary
Infidelity
Honor
Consist

More quotes by Thomas Paine

Image
Civilization, or that which is so called, has operated two ways to make one part of society more affluent and the other part more wretched than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.
Thomas Paine
Image
And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man.
Thomas Paine
Image
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.
Thomas Paine
Image
Prejudice will fall in a combat with interest.
Thomas Paine
Image
He who takes nature for his guide, is not easily beaten out of his argument
Thomas Paine
Image
I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered and the easier repaired when disordered.
Thomas Paine
Image
The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
Thomas Paine
Image
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
Thomas Paine
Image
There is something in meanness which excites a species of resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred.
Thomas Paine
Image
...the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
Thomas Paine
Image
No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance.
Thomas Paine
Image
Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.
Thomas Paine
Image
Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to bind me in all cases whatsoever to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?
Thomas Paine
Image
The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
Thomas Paine
Image
That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
Thomas Paine
Image
Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it.
Thomas Paine
Image
The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the original system of theology.
Thomas Paine
Image
The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.
Thomas Paine
Image
We ought therefore to suspect that a great mass of information respecting the Bible, and the introduction of it into the world, has been suppressed by the united tyranny of Church and State, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which ought to be known.
Thomas Paine
Image
All the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man or the unity of man, as being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions.
Thomas Paine