Quote

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.

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
Class
Ridicule
Difficult
Sublime
Often
Nearly
Makes
Related
Ridiculous
Difficulty
Step
Steps
Separately

More quotes by 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
Every Tory is a coward for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.
Thomas Paine
Image
Titles do not count with posterity.
Thomas Paine
Image
The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing.
Thomas Paine
Image
Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.
Thomas Paine
Image
The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
Thomas Paine
Image
The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.
Thomas Paine
Image
A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose.
Thomas Paine
Image
Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage than any victory with all its expence.
Thomas Paine
Image
There is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.
Thomas Paine
Image
The aristocracy are not the farmers who work the land, and raise the produce, but are the mere consumers of the rent and when compared with the active world, are the drones, a seraglio of males, who neither collect the honey nor form the hive, but exist only for lazy enjoyment.
Thomas Paine
Image
Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion.
Thomas Paine
Image
A government of our own is our natural right and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance.
Thomas Paine
Image
The stupid texts of the Bible - from which, be the talents of the preacher what they may, only stupid sermons can be preached.
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
These are the times that try men's souls.
Thomas Paine
Image
Reputation is what men and women think of us character is what God and angels know of us.
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
I believe in one God, and no more and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of humans and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.
Thomas Paine
Image
A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
Thomas Paine