Thomas Paine

“A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue but moderation in principle is always a vice.”

“Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.”

“The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.”

“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.”

“These are the times that try men's souls.”

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

“Human nature is not of itself vicious.”

“I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.”

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

“Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true.”

“Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.”

“Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.”

“Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.”

“The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.”

“Time makes more converts than reason.”

“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”

“War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end it has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.”

“When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”