Thomas Paine

“The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.”

“It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself.”

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything it's value.”

“My own mind is my own church.”

“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value.”

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

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

“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.”

“Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying”

“The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed re...”

“When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged...”

“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 do...”

“In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, b...”

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My...”

“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”

“I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself...”

“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”

“Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe...”

“All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.”