Political Quotes by Thomas Paine

32 Political quotes by Thomas Paine

All Political quotes Thomas Paine’s page

Paine’s pen helped ignite a movement for freedom. These thirty‑two excerpts capture his fervent calls for rights and the moral arguments that fueled change.

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It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.

Thomas Paine

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Government is best which governs least

Thomas Paine

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It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself.

Thomas Paine

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Wisdom degenerates in governments as governments increase in age.

Thomas Paine

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If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised.

Thomas Paine

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The representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found.

Thomas Paine

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What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which…

Thomas Paine

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Government," says Swift, "is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many heads.

Thomas Paine

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Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor.

Thomas Paine

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The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.

Thomas Paine

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A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.

Thomas Paine

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It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt

Thomas Paine

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Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious…

Thomas Paine

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A single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrolled rabidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to…

Thomas Paine

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As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by…

Thomas Paine

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If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy . . . to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break…

Thomas Paine

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The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty,…

Thomas Paine

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To live with our enemies as if they may some time become our friends, and to live with our friends as if…

Thomas Paine

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It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it…

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,…

Thomas Paine

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Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued.…

Thomas Paine

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As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of…

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…

Thomas Paine

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It is unnatural that a pure stream should flow from a foul fountain its vices are but a continuation of the vices…

Thomas Paine

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When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example for the poor to plunder the rich of his…

Thomas Paine

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There are two distinct classes of men - those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.

Thomas Paine

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All men can understand what representation is; and that it must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents.

Thomas Paine

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It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected,…

Thomas Paine

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When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind…

Thomas Paine

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Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his…

Thomas Paine

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Those words, temperate and moderate, are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good is not…

Thomas Paine

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There is existing in man, a mass of sense lying in a dormant state. The construction of government ought to be such…

Thomas Paine

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More by Thomas Paine

“No man is prejudiced in favour of a thing, knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its…

Thomas Paine

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“The laws of every country must be analogous to some common principle.”

Thomas Paine

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The book called the Bible has been voted by men, and decreed by human laws to be the word of God; and the disbelief…

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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One would think that a system loaded with such gross and vulgar absurdities as Scripture religion is could never have obtained credit; yet we…

Thomas Paine

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Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.

Thomas Paine

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What is it the Bible teaches us? - raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? - to believe that…

Thomas Paine

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Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

Thomas Paine

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“It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on…

Thomas Paine

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But there are times when men have serious thoughts, and it is at such times, when they begin to think, that they begin to…

Thomas Paine

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Wisdom is not the purchase of a day

Thomas Paine

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Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter…

Thomas Paine

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

Thomas Paine

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“To pass from the extremes of danger to safety-from the tumult of war to the tranquility of peace, though sweet in contemplation, requires a…

Thomas Paine

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What more does man want to know than that the hand or power that made these things is divine, is omnipotent? Let him believe…

Thomas Paine

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