Quote

And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.

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
Public
Puzzled
Whether
Treacherous
Pain
Hypocrite
Ever
Abandoned
Good
Decide
Life
Private
World
Friendship
Apostate
Principles
Impostor

More quotes by Thomas Paine

Image
If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected if not, they will be despised.
Thomas Paine
Image
If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
Thomas Paine
Image
I disbelieve all holy men and holy books.
Thomas Paine
Image
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine
Image
Thus commerce, though in itself a moral nullity, has had a considerable influence in tempering the human mind....he trades with the same countries ...(that he) would have gone to war with.
Thomas Paine
Image
They took care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood, and they hid from the understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know, namely, that government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.
Thomas Paine
Image
These are the times that try men's souls.
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
When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir.
Thomas Paine
Image
The intimacy which is contracted in infancy, and friendship which is formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable.
Thomas Paine
Image
He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
Thomas Paine
Image
As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my purpose by any personal altercation and the man who cannot do this, is not fit for a public character.
Thomas Paine
Image
Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals.
Thomas Paine
Image
Compassion, the fairest associate of the heart.
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
Ah, reader, put thy trust in thy creator, and thou wilt be safe but if thou trustest to the book called the scriptures thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable and falsehood.
Thomas Paine
Image
No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its being right and when he sees it is not so, the prejudice will be gone.
Thomas Paine
Image
Titles do not count with posterity.
Thomas Paine
Image
Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.
Thomas Paine
Image
Arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order.
Thomas Paine