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It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support.

Thomas Paine

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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
Government
Creator
Men
Ignorance
Calculated
Hold
Scheme
Support
Schemes
Rights
Invented
Church
Mutual
Religion
Systems
Christian
False

More quotes by Thomas Paine

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Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.
Thomas Paine
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To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
Thomas Paine
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He who takes nature for his guide, is not easily beaten out of his argument
Thomas Paine
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Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured
Thomas Paine
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There is something in corruption which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself to the object it looks upon, and sees everything stained and impure.
Thomas Paine
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...the true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity.
Thomas Paine
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It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action it begets a calamitous necessity of going on.
Thomas Paine
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These are the times that try men's souls.
Thomas Paine
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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
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I do not believe in the creed professed by any church that I know of. Each of these churches accuse the other of unbelief and for my part, I disbelieve them all.
Thomas Paine
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The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind.
Thomas Paine
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The burden of the national debt consists not in its being so many millions, or so many hundred millions, but in the quantity of taxes collected every year to pay the interest. If this quantity continue the same, the burden of the national debt is the same to all intents and purposes, be the capital more or less.
Thomas Paine
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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
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To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
Thomas Paine
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Government has no right to make itself a party in any debates respecting the principles or mode of forming or of changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who exercise the powers of government, that constitutions, and the governments issuing from them, are established.
Thomas Paine
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I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel.
Thomas Paine
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... in free countries the law ought to be King and there ought to be no other.
Thomas Paine
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...the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
Thomas Paine
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Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against the ambition of kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of such governments and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a nation should apply itself to reform the system.
Thomas Paine
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I believe in one God, and no more and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
Thomas Paine