Quote

Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles he can only discover them.

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
System
Regulated
Universe
Governed
Science
Invention
Cannot
Fixed
Every
Basis
Make
Bases
Men
Discover
Principles
Unalterable

More quotes by Thomas Paine

Image
Public credit is suspicion asleep.
Thomas Paine
Image
Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it.
Thomas Paine
Image
From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.
Thomas Paine
Image
Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it.
Thomas Paine
Image
Christianity is the strangest religion ever set up, for it committed a murder upon Jesus in order to redeem mankind from the sin of eating an apple.
Thomas Paine
Image
The times that tried men's souls are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.
Thomas Paine
Image
It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.
Thomas Paine
Image
Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself.
Thomas Paine
Image
If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up.
Thomas Paine
Image
Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system. The foundation and superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks and ever will.
Thomas Paine
Image
The final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
Thomas Paine
Image
Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
Thomas Paine
Image
A single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrolled rabidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to the principles of liberty as that of a despotic monarch.
Thomas Paine
Image
On this question of war, three things are to be considered. First, the right of declaring it: secondly, the expense of supporting it: thirdly, the mode of conducting it after it is declared.
Thomas Paine
Image
It is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments.
Thomas Paine
Image
... a thirst for power is the natural disease of monarchy.
Thomas Paine
Image
Human nature is not of itself vicious.
Thomas Paine
Image
Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Thomas Paine
Image
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
Thomas Paine
Image
Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.
Thomas Paine