Rights Quotes by Thomas Paine

Men should not petition for rights, but take them

— Thomas Paine

When all other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made perfect.

— Thomas Paine

The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go…

— Thomas Paine

They may be all comprehended under three heads - 1st, Superstition; 2d, Power; 3d, the common interests of society, and the common…

— Thomas Paine

Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured

— Thomas Paine

The right of voting for representatives , is the primary right by which other rights are protected.

— Thomas Paine

It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality of rights never mean the exclusion should take…

— Thomas Paine

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

— Thomas Paine

“Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before,…

— Thomas Paine

Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights,…

— Thomas Paine

Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for…

— Thomas Paine

The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is…

— Thomas Paine

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

— Thomas Paine

It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in…

— Thomas Paine

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

In the first part of 'Rights of Man' I have endeavoured to show...that there does not exist a right to establish hereditary…

— Thomas Paine

Rights are not gifts from one man to another, nor from one class of men to another. It is impossible to discover…

— Thomas Paine

“First, That every civil right grows out of a natural right; or, in other words, is a natural right exchanged. Secondly, That…

— Thomas Paine

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

— Thomas Paine

“I. Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only…

— Thomas Paine

“The natural rights which he retains are all those in which the Power to execute is as perfect in the individual as…

— Thomas Paine

The Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the…

— Thomas Paine

I consider the war of America against Britain as the country's war, the public's war, or the war of the people in…

— Thomas Paine