Quote Search

It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action; it begets a calamitous necessity of going on.

—  Thomas Paine

He whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

—  Thomas Paine

Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation is principle is always a vice.

—  Thomas Paine

Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving: it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.

—  Thomas Paine

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.

—  Thomas Paine

It is the object only of war that makes it honorable. And if there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engages.

—  Thomas Paine

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

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

—  Thomas Paine

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

—  Thomas Paine

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

—  Thomas Paine