Quote

The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.

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
Home
Meant
Preceded
Years
Neither
Persecuted
Friendship
Reformation
Liberty
Sanctuary
Open
Almighty
Religious
Afford
Future
Safety
America
Discovery
Graciously

More quotes by Thomas Paine

Image
The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice.
Thomas Paine
Image
The idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet-laureat.
Thomas Paine
Image
Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off.
Thomas Paine
Image
[A]ll churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, are simply human inventions. They use fear to enslave us. They are a monopoly for power and profit.
Thomas Paine
Image
The essential psychological requirement of a free society is the willingness on the part of the individual to accept responsibility for his life. - Edith Packer When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny.
Thomas Paine
Image
There is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.
Thomas Paine
Image
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
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
Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
Thomas Paine
Image
The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy.
Thomas Paine
Image
Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
Thomas Paine
Image
Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it.
Thomas Paine
Image
To take away (voting) is to reduce a man to slavery.
Thomas Paine
Image
Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.
Thomas Paine
Image
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas Paine
Image
It is not the nature of avarice to be satisfied with anything but money. Every passion that acts upon mankind has a peculiar mode of operation. Many of them are temporary and fluctuating they admit of cessation and variety. But avarice is a fixed, uniform passion.
Thomas Paine
Image
Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.
Thomas Paine
Image
Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against the ambition of kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of such governments and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a nation should apply itself to reform the system.
Thomas Paine
Image
Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care but there is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.
Thomas Paine
Image
These are the times that try men's souls.
Thomas Paine