Quote

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

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
Knowledge
Delusion
Real
Consistent
Make
Keeping
Always
Sin
People
Ignorance
Policy
Priestcraft
Enemy
Supports
Support
Acquisition

More quotes by Thomas Paine

Image
Every religion is good that teaches man to be good and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.
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
But where, says some, is the King of America? I'll tell you. Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.
Thomas Paine
Image
The greatest characters the world has known, have rose on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy.
Thomas Paine
Image
Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.
Thomas Paine
Image
But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?
Thomas Paine
Image
An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
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
What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.
Thomas Paine
Image
That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
Thomas Paine
Image
It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.
Thomas Paine
Image
Men did not make the earth... It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. ... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.
Thomas Paine
Image
The United States of America will sound as pompously in the world or in history as The Kingdom of Great Britain.
Thomas Paine
Image
...It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
Thomas Paine
Image
The graceful pride of truth knows no extremes, and preserves, in every latitude of life, the right-angled character of man.
Thomas Paine
Image
All Of Us Might Wish At Times That We Lived In A More Tranquil World....(yet) Our Times Are Challenging And Filled With Opportunity.
Thomas Paine
Image
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
Thomas Paine
Image
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
Thomas Paine
Image
Of all the tyrannies that effect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity.
Thomas Paine
Image
The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.
Thomas Paine