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Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it.

Thomas Paine

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Thomas Paine
Age: 72 †
Born: 1737
Born: January 29
Died: 1809
Died: June 8
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Journalist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Politician
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Writer
Thetford
Norfolk
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More quotes by Thomas Paine

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It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention it is only the application of them that is human.
Thomas Paine
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It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes.
Thomas Paine
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I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel.
Thomas Paine
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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
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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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When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous.
Thomas Paine
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The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.
Thomas Paine
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Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Thomas Paine
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Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad.
Thomas Paine
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Every religion is good that teaches man to be good and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.
Thomas Paine
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Each government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of government.
Thomas Paine
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For the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings more subtle — not more just.
Thomas Paine
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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
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Kill the king but spare the man.
Thomas Paine
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Reputation is what men and women think of us character is what God and angels know of us.
Thomas Paine
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Now is the seedtime of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now, will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters.
Thomas Paine
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Men should not petition for rights, but take them
Thomas Paine
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The final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
Thomas Paine
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The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy.
Thomas Paine
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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