Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.
Thomas Paine
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Military
Spirit
Life
Diminishes
Defence
Diminish
Commerce
Patriotism
More quotes by Thomas Paine
Public credit is suspicion asleep.
Thomas Paine
Reason obeys itself and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
Thomas Paine
Man did not make the earth, and though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity, any part of it.
Thomas Paine
As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin.
Thomas Paine
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
Thomas Paine
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
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
When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
Thomas Paine
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
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance.
Thomas Paine
Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect that his mind was forever young, his temper ever serene science, that never grows gray, was always his mistress. He was never without an object, for when we cease to have an object, we become like an invalid in a hospital waiting for death.
Thomas Paine
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
It is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be taken into consideration.
Thomas Paine
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
We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest truest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
Thomas Paine
Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.
Thomas Paine
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
But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?
Thomas Paine
How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.
Thomas Paine
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
