Quote

Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion.

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
Invention
Mystery
Truth
Human
Obscures
Humans
Antagonist
Distortion
Fog
Represents

More quotes by 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
The final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
Thomas Paine
Image
The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense.
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
Moderation in temper is always a virtue but moderation in principle is always a vice.
Thomas Paine
Image
Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.
Thomas Paine
Image
Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.
Thomas Paine
Image
The Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the eternal laws and obligations of morality are to the conscience. It should be unalterable by any human power.
Thomas Paine
Image
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Thomas Paine
Image
We ought therefore to suspect that a great mass of information respecting the Bible, and the introduction of it into the world, has been suppressed by the united tyranny of Church and State, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which ought to be known.
Thomas Paine
Image
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
Image
Reason obeys itself and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
Thomas Paine
Image
EVERY national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints and the Turks their Mahomet as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.
Thomas Paine
Image
The art of publicity is a black art but it has come to stay, and every year adds to its potency.
Thomas Paine
Image
It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.
Thomas Paine
Image
Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
Thomas Paine
Image
For the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings more subtle — not more just.
Thomas Paine
Image
Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles he can only discover them.
Thomas Paine
Image
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
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