Quote

Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and flourish best together.

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
Dunghill
Weeds
Flourish
Persecution
Suspicion
Weed
Together
Best

More quotes by Thomas Paine

Image
The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing.
Thomas Paine
Image
It is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene.
Thomas Paine
Image
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
Thomas Paine
Image
Arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order.
Thomas Paine
Image
Every proprietor owes to the community a ground-rent for the land which he holds.
Thomas Paine
Image
Moderation in temper is always a virtue but moderation in principle is always a vice.
Thomas Paine
Image
A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.
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
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
Image
Prejudice, like the spider, makes everywhere its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same. Prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind.
Thomas Paine
Image
Liberty cannot be purchased by a wish.
Thomas Paine
Image
Human nature is not of itself vicious.
Thomas Paine
Image
Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
Thomas Paine
Image
It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
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
Image
The countries the most famous and the most respected of antiquity are those which distinguished themselves by promoting and patronizing science, and on the contrary those which neglected or discouraged it are universally denominated rude and barbarous.
Thomas Paine
Image
When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.
Thomas Paine
Image
The essential psychological requirement of a free society is the willingness on the part of the individual to accept responsibility for his life. - Edith Packer When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny.
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
No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people.
Thomas Paine