Word Celebrity Blog

A Patriot Changed The World


I want to tell you about a man who has been dead for more than 200 years.  He may have been the greatest patriot.  He once proclaimed, “The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and "to do good" is my religion”. 

He could not compromise on anything, enough to fit in.  He never held a political office, and he was often an embarrassment for his friends who did.  His friends loved him because he told the truth.  He caused many changes in America, in England, in France, and ultimately around the world.  His writings have inspired many great men to this day.  If you were his friend, you knew that you would eventually get into trouble, because he just could not keep his mouth shut.

He spent most of his life attempting to spread freedom around the world .  There were other men had similar missions.  Men like Mahatma Gandhi,  Che Guevara,  Malcolm X,  but, Thomas Paine was the beginning. 

He was not a very good soldier, or much of a businessman or administrator, but ,THOMAS PAINE DID KNOW HOW TO WRITE.  Joel Barlow said, “Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vein.”



























Thomas Paine by Matthew Pratt, 1785-95.


Thomas Paine  was born February 9, 1737. He was the son of Joseph Pain, (or Paine), a Quaker who worked as a corset-maker, and Frances (née Cocke), an Anglican.  The Paine family lived in Thetford, which was an important market town and coach stage-post, in rural Norfolk, England.  He was born  with the name Thomas Pain, there were claims that he changed the spelling of his family name when he emigrated to Pennsylvania in America in 1774, but there is evidence that he was using the spelling "Thomas Paine" in 1769, while he was still in Lewes, Sussex.

Thomas Paine attended Thetford Grammar School  from1744 to 1749, during a time period when there was no compulsory education.  At the age of thirteen, he apprenticed to his stay-maker father, and when he reached the age of 19, he went to sea as a mercenary.  When he returned to England, he opened a shop where he was the master corset-maker.  The shop would soon fail.  Shortly afterwards Thomas Paine married his first wife and she became pregnant.  Several months later, his wife went into early labor.  She and their child, both died.






































In July 1761, Thomas Paine returned to Thetford to work as a supernumerary officer. In December 1762, he became an excise officer in Grantham, Lincolnshire; in August 1764, he was transferred to Alford, at a salary of £50 per annum. On August 27, 1765, he was fired as an Excise Officer for "claiming to have inspected goods he did not inspect."

On July 31, 1766, he requested his reinstatement from the Board of Excise, which they granted the next day, upon vacancy.  While awaiting that, he worked as a stay maker in Diss, Norfolk,  and later as a servant for a Mr. Noble, of Goodman's Fields, and for a Mr. Gardiner, at Kensington.  He also applied to become an ordained minister of the Church of England and, according to some accounts, he preached in Moorfields.

In 1767, Thomas Paine was appointed to a position in Grampound, Cornwall; subsequently, he asked to leave this post to await a vacancy, and he became a schoolteacher in London.  On February 19, 1768,  he was appointed to Lewes, East Sussex, living above the fifteenth-century Bull House, which was the tobacco shop of Samuel Ollive and Esther Ollive.

There, Thomas Paine became involved in civic matters for the first time, when Samuel Ollive introduced him to the Society of Twelve, a local, élite intellectual group that met semestrally, to discuss town politics.  He also was involved in the influential vestry church group that collected taxes and tithes to distribute among the poor.

In 1768, he became a tax officer in England and was fired twice. Thomas Paine also worked as a school teacher in London and as an ordained a Minister for the Church of England while between jobs.

On March 26, 1771, at age 34, he married Elizabeth Ollive, who was his landlord's daughter. From 1772 to 1773, Thomas Paine joined excise officers who were asking Parliament for better pay and working conditions, and publishing, in the summer of 1772, "The Case of the Officers of Excise", a twenty-one-page article, and his first political work. He spent a long London winter distributing the 4,000 printed copies to the members of Parliament as well as others.  In the spring of 1774, Thomas Paine was fired from the excise service for being absent from his post without permission; and his tobacco shop failed about the same time.  On April 14, in order to avoid debtor's prison, he sold his household possessions to pay his debts.


























Benjamin Franklin.


On June 4, 1774, Thomas Paine formally separated from wife Elizabeth and moved to London. While there, the mathematician, Fellow of the Royal Society, George Lewis Scott introduced him to Benjamin Franklin, who made a suggestion that he emigrate to British colonial America, and gave Thomas Paine a letter of recommendation to assist in his emigration to Pennsylvania.


























In October, Thomas Paine at the age of 37, emigrated from Great Britain to the American colonies, arriving in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774. Sea voyages were dangerous at the time and Thomas Paine came close to death because the ship’s water supply was contaminated. Five passengers had died of typhoid and Benjamin Franklin’s personal physician had to carry him off the ship. It took six weeks for him to recover. Thomas Paine had come to Philadelphia, which was the political and cultural center of America, in 1774.





















He became a citizen of Pennsylvania by taking the oath of allegiance after a short period of time. He was hired as a writer for the Pennsylvania Magazine.  He became the editor of the magazine and friends with a group of radicals who were centered here.  Shortly after Thomas Paine had arrived in Philadelphia, he wrote to Ben Franklin that he could see the slave market from his apartment window and asked how we could be talking about freedom and allow slavery to exist.  One of Thomas Paine’s first essays was "African Slavery in America" (1775).   Five days later the first anti-slavery society was formed.  He became one of the first members of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society (which still exists here in Philadelphia).  In 1779, Thomas Paine introduced an act for the abolition of slavery into the Pennsylvania Assembly. This was the first Proclamation of Emancipation in America.

His second article (April, 1775) attacked the practice of dueling.  His August article was an argument titled “The Rights of Women.”  In another article, he was the first to write “the United States of America."























And in January of 1776, although he had been in America for only a year, Thomas Paine invented a new type of politics when he wrote "Common Sense". His pamphlet was the first time that “we the people” were invited to participate in political discussion, in deciding what our fate would be. Before "Common Sense", politics was decided by the upper classes and “we the people” were just told what to do. Thomas Paine used everyday language so that everyone could understand the issues. He made fun of the king and ridiculed the aristocracy, who had ruled our lives. It was the first time people were called on to make up their own minds, to take control of their own lives, to revolt, and to take control of their country. 

It was a powerful argument for American Independence that inspired the American Revolution. In terms of population of the Colonies at that time, it sold more copies and had greater circulation than any book in American history. Percentage-wise today, it was read by more people than watch the Super Bowl each year. (120,000 copies in the first three months, and 500,000 in the first year.) He donated all of the profits to the Continental Army.  He said: ”As my wish was to serve an oppressed people, and assist in a just and good cause,  I conceived that the honor of it would be promoted by my declining to make even the usual profits of an author.”



































Statue of Thomas Paine,  Norfolk.


In 1781, Thomas Paine traveled to France with Col. John Laurens seeking assistance for the Revolution.  He returned to Boston the same year doing what no others had been able to do: bringing 2,500,000 livres in silver, and a convoy ship carrying clothing and military equipment for the Continental Army.


























When the success of the American Revolution was in doubt,  wrote the first of 16 pamphlets entitled “The American Crisis”. The first, he wrote on a drum head to inspire the soldiers despite their lack of food, clothing, and supplies. George  Washington had it read aloud to his troops the night before the Battle of Trenton. Once again the people of the colonies were inspired enough to return to the hardships of the revolutionary army. This essay was read to the troops before the battles. It  stirred up the soldiers for victory.

Perhaps the most famous quote in American history: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but “to bind us in all cases whatsoever” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.” 







































Thomas Paine wrote sixteen Crisis papers between December 19, 1776 and December 9, 1783,  turned all the money he made on these best selling publications over to Washington to support the army.  It has been said that he was the only founding father that did not profit from the revolution.

It was from this same essay that President Obama quoted in his inauguration speech:  “Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.”

Thomas Paine also helped write the new constitution for the state of Pennsylvania, which was the most radical constitution ever written and became the model for the constitution that was to be adopted by the new French Republic.

The writings of Thomas Paine and the American Revolution come out of the Age of Enlightenment, a period where reason was advocated as the primary basis of authority and both the aristocracy and the established churches and religions were being challenged.


























Edmund Burke.


Thomas Paine went back to England to promote his design for a single-span iron bridge. In England, he received European patents for both a smokeless candle and an iron bridge, but he pursued his career as a revolutionary writer. When he was asked about his constant travels, he wrote: ”Where Liberty is not, there is my country."  In 1791 Thomas Paine published "The Rights of Man, Part 1"  in response to Edmund Burke’s 1790 attack on the French Revolution,  "Reflections on the Revolution in France".  Not only did Thomas Paine defend the French Revolution, he berated Edmund Burke, and denounced the concept of monarchy and the right of the aristocracy to rule. 


























King George III


From 1791-92, in response to criticism of the French Revolution, he wrote “The Rights of Man 2” which later became the basis for the rights the English people enjoy today. He is still considered by England to be one of the top 50 most important Englishmen in history. But, at that time he was labeled an outlaw for his anti-monarchist views and fled to France.

“Common Sense” had been published there in French and was immensely popular. "Rights of Man" was a best seller throughout Europe as a defense of the French Revolution, in promoting the overthrow of Monarchy, and in the establishment of the republican form of government.  In France, Thomas Paine was a hero and was elected to the National Assembly even though he did not speak French.  Of course, he instantly got into trouble when he suggested to the French Assembly that since France was the first country to overthrow the monarchy it should also be the first country to do away with the death sentence. He said that the king should be exiled to America and not killed.  The Jacobins under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre were not pleased.  Thomas Paine was arrested and sent to jail.

Each evening, a guard would come through the jail and put a chalk X on the door of the prisoners to be executed the next morning.  One day, the door to Thomas Paine’s cell was open when the guard put the X on his door, so when the door was closed the X was on the inside.  The next day when the executioners came around to check for markings, they could not see the one on his cell door because it was on the inside.that was the reason Thomas Paine was not executed. 


























George Washington


George Washington as President and Governor Morris as Ambassador to France refused to intercede on Thomas Paine’s behalf.  It was not until James Monroe became Ambassador to France that Thomas Paine was released from jail, and not until Thomas Jefferson was President that he could safely return to America.

























Thomas Jefferson


For writing "The Age of Reason" (1794), Thomas Paine was attacked as being an atheist and he lost much of his popular following and many of his friends.  "The Age of Reason" continues the concepts of "The Rights of Man" and asserts the individuals right to freedom of choice.

In the preface to "The Age of Reason", Thomas Paine wrote, “You will do me the justice to remember that 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 to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason.”





















Monument to Thomas Paine on North Avenue in New Rochelle, New York,


In the opening paragraphs of "The Age of Reason",  Thomas Paine says, “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy. 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 own mind is my own church. 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.”

When others condemned Thomas Paine’s "Rights of Man",  Christopher Hitchens wrote, “Paine wanted to prevent the French Revolution from becoming a full-blown instatement of atheism.  Much as he may have welcomed the end of the rotten alliance between pulpit and throne, he was dismayed by the violent rush towards godlessness. His book, therefore, had the dual purpose of subverting organized religion and asserting ‘deism’.”

Deism is the belief that a supreme natural God exists and created the physical universe, and that religious truths can be arrived at by the application of reason and observation of the natural world. Deists generally reject the notion of supernatural revelation as a basis of truth or religious dogma.  These views contrast with the dependence on divine revelation found in many Christian,  Islamic  and Judaic teachings.

According to Thomas Paine “There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is not to be found in any other system of religion. All other systems have something in them that either shock our reason, or are repugnant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in order to force himself to believe them.”

“But in Deism our reason and our belief become happily united. The wonderful structure of the universe, and everything we behold in the system of the creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the existence of a God, and at the same time proclaim His attributes.”

























James Monroe


In 1794, Thomas Paine was released and narrowly escaped execution, thanks to the efforts of James Monroe, who was the United States Minister to France.  He would later become President of the United States. Thomas Paine stayed in France until 1802, when he returned to America after receiving  a personal invitation from President Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Paine continued to write powerful criticism of the Federalists including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams, as well as others.

Unfortunately, Thomas Paine's life in the United States until his death in 1809, was a life filled with great difficulty.  His contributions to the American Revolution had been basically discounted by the enemies that he had made through his writings: (1) the slave holders hated him; (2) members of organized religion called him an atheist; (3) the Federalists hated him for  declaring the rights of the people and advocating small, local government rather than a powerful, centralized government; and (4) he was blamed for the cruelties of the French Revolution. 



















Paine Cottage.


About ex-president George Washington, Thomas Paine wrote: ”The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in the world is a sort of non-describable, chameleon colored thing called prudence. It is, in many cases, a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied to hypocrisy that it easily slides into it.“

Thomas Paine’s last major work, "Agrarian Justice"  (1795),  continued the discussion of the problem of poverty and developed further his proposals for limiting the accumulation of property. “... The accumulation of personal property,” he wrote, “is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labor that produced it; the consequence of which is, that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence.”

"Agrarian Justice" which proposed the taxing the landed rich, inspired Henry George to write his classic work "Progress and Poverty" in 1879. "Agrarian Justice" also encouraged the Single Tax movement (to abolish all taxation except that upon land values) and introduced many of the elements of the modern welfare state. We now have pensions for the elderly (social security) were started in the 1930s, his other proposal of providing start up money or “stakes” for young people is still just a dream.


























Statue in Bordentown City, New Jersey.


Thomas Paine  was ignored by former friends and abandoned by the American public that he had spent a lifetime sacrificing for.  He died on June 8, 1809 at the age of 72, in Greenwich Village, New York City.  Only six mourners came to his funeral.  His obituary, was reprinted nationally.  It simply read: ”He had lived long, did some good and much harm."

Robert G. Ingersoll wrote of Thomas Paine's funeral for the North American Review in August, 1892:  “In a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the bounty of the dead - on horseback, a Quaker, the humanity of whose heart dominated the creed of his head -- and, following on foot, two negroes filled with gratitude - constituted the funeral cortege of Thomas Paine.”




















Thomas Paine's Burial Location.


Thomas Paine was buried in New Rochelle, New York, on the grounds of a loyalist estate that was given to him by Congress after years of petitioning for compensation.  His remains were later disinterred by an admirer, William Cobbett, who wanted them returned to England.  Upon Cobbett’s death, Thomas Paine’s bones were later discovered as part of Cobbett’s estate.  Their whereabouts are unknown today,  but some of Cobbett’s friends’ descendants claim to have his skull and right hand.

Thomas Paine's legacy as the perennial patriot is that his words,  like his life,  were unafraid to tackle complex questions with honesty and reason, despite social taboos, personal fear, or dangerous consequences.   

With a rare grace, Thomas Paine navigates centuries of accepted ideas to find truths that are relevant to every thinking soul, independent of the time in which they live.

James Monroe expressed best the significance of Thomas Paine when he wrote to Congress in 1794: "The services Thomas Paine rendered to his country in its struggle for freedom have implanted in the hearts of his countrymen a sense of gratitude never to be effaced as long as they shall deserve the title of a just and generous people."


























Thomas Paine by Auguste Millière, after an engraving by William Sharp, after George Romney.


Abraham Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, reports that Abraham Lincoln wrote a defense of Thomas Paine's deism in 1835, and a friend of Lincoln named Samuel Hill burned it to save Abraham Lincoln's political career.  Historian Roy Basler, the editor of Abraham Lincoln's papers, said Thomas Paine had a strong influence on Abraham Lincoln's style: "No other writer of the eighteenth century, with the exception of Thomas Jefferson, parallels more closely the temper or gist of Lincoln's later thought. In style, Paine above all others affords the variety of eloquence which, chastened and adapted to Lincoln's own mood, is revealed in Lincoln's formal writings."

Jack Fruchtman, Jr. wrote: "Thomas Paine turned a tax revolt into a revolution for independence with "Common Sense", saved the revolution from failure with "The Crisis", defended the French Revolution, attacked the political bureaucracy, and promoted the concepts of democracy in "The Rights of Man", attacked the religious bureaucracy and promoted Deism in "The Age of Reason", and confronted the issues of poverty in "Agrarian Reform".

Jack Fruchtman, Jr. is a professor of political science at Maryland’s Towson University.

Thomas Edison said: "I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic ... It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine's works in my boyhood ... it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker's views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me, then, about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember, very vividly, the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine's writings, and I recall thinking, at that time, 'What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!' My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days".


Thomas Paine Memorials
























In 1969, a Prominent Americans series stamp honoring Paine was issued.


The first and longest standing memorial to Thomas Paine is the carved and inscribed 12 foot marble column in New Rochelle, New York organized and funded by publisher, educator and reformer Gilbert Vale (1791–1866) and raised in 1839 by the American sculptor and architect James Frazee — The Thomas Paine Monument (see image below). New Rochelle is also the original site of Paine's 300 acre farm, confiscated by the State of New York from the Tory and monarchist Frederick Davoe and awarded to Paine for his services in the American Revolution.  The same site is the home of the Thomas Paine Museum, whose holdings — the subject of a sell-off controversy  —  were temporarily relocated to the New York Historical Society and are now safely and more permanently archived in the Iona College Library.

In England a statue of Thomas Paine, quill pen and inverted copy of "Rights of Man" in hand, stands in King Street, Thetford, Norfolk, his birth place. Moreover, in Thetford, the Sixth form is named after him. Thomas Paine was ranked #34 in the 100 Greatest Britons in 2002 extensive Nationwide poll conducted by the BBC.

Bronx Community College includes Paine in its Hall of Fame of Great Americans, and there are statues of Thomas Paine in Morristown and Bordentown, New Jersey, and in the Parc Montsouris, in Paris.[65][66] Also in Paris, there is a plaque in the street where he lived from 1797 to 1802, that says: "Thomas PAINE / 1737–1809 / Englishman by birth / American by adoption / French by decree". Yearly, between July 4 and 14, the Lewes Town Council in the United Kingdom celebrates the life and work of Thomas Paine.

In the early 1990s, largely through the efforts of citizen activist David Henley of Virginia, legislation (S.Con.Res 110, and H.R. 1628) was introduced in the 102nd Congress by ideological opposites Sen. Steve Symms (R-ID) and Rep.  Nita Lowey (D-NY).  With over 100 formal letters of endorsement by United States and foreign historians, philosophers, and organizations, including the Thomas Paine National Historical Society, the legislation garnered 78 original co-sponsors in the Senate and 230 original co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, and was consequently passed by both houses unanimous consent. In October, 1992 the legislation was signed into law (PL102-407 & PL102-459) by President George H.W. Bush authorizing the construction, using private funds, of a memorial to Thomas Paine in "Area 1" of the grounds of the United States Capitol.  As of January 2011, the memorial has not yet been built.


Thomas Paine's writing greatly influenced his contemporaries and, especially, the American revolutionaries. His books provoked only a brief upsurge in Deism in America, but in the long term inspired philosophic and working-class radicals in the United Kingdom, and United States liberals, libertarians, feminists, democratic socialists, social democrats, anarchists, freethinkers, and progressives, often claim him as an intellectual ancestor. Thomas Paine's critique on institutionalized religion and advocation of rational thinking influenced many British freethinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as William Cobbett,  George Holyoake,  Charles Bradlaugh  and Bertrand Russell.

Many of Thomas Paine's works have also been an inspiration for rapidly expanding secular humanism.  His Deism and his writings on Deism have inspired the creation of the "World Union of Deists" and the writing of the book "Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You".

























Thomas Paine is often credited with writing "African Slavery in America", the first article proposing the emancipation of African slaves and the abolition of slavery. It was published on March 8, 1775 in the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser (aka The Pennsylvania Magazine and American Museum).  Citing a lack of evidence that Thomas Paine was the author of this anonymously published essay, some scholars (Eric Foner and Alfred Owen Aldridge) no longer consider this one of his works.


Quotations by Thomas Paine

“Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”

“Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.” – Rights of Man, 1791

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” – Dissertation on First Principles of Government, December 23, 1791

“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” – The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” – Common Sense, 1776

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.” – The Crisis No. I (written 19 December 1776, published 23 December 1776)

“O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.”

The quote "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" is widely but incorrectly attributed to Thomas Paine. This can nor be found anywhere in his published works.


Quotations by Thomas paine from "Rights of Man, 1"

"Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow.” p.55

“That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age, may be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another. In such cases, who is to decide, the living, or the dead?” p.58

“If the crimes of men were exhibited with their sufferings, the stage effect would sometimes be lost, and the audience would be inclined to approve where it was intended they should commiserate.” p.72

“Men are all of one degree and consequently that all men are born equal, and with equal natural rights, in the same manner as if posterity had been continued by creation instead of generation, the latter being only the mode by which the former is carried forward; …” p.78

“Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured. His natural rights are the foundation of all his civil rights.” p.79

Natural rights are those which appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others.” pp.79-80  

“Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society.” p.80

“Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.” p.80

“A generous parent should have said, ‘If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;’ The right of reform is in the nation in its original character, and the constitutional method be by a general convention elected for the purpose. There is, moreover, a paradox in the idea of vitiated bodies reforming themselves.” p.84

“War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries.” p.87

“[War] is the art of conquering at home: the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretense must be made for expenditures.” pp.87-88

“There is an unusual unfitness in an aristocracy to be legislators for a nation. Their ideas of distributive justice are corrupted at the very source.” p.93

Ignorance, neglect, or contempt of human rights, are the sole causes of public misfortunes and corruptions of government.” p.117

“Reason and ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.” p.142

“If a law be bad, it is one thing to oppose the practice of it, but it is quite a different thing to expose its errors, to reason on its defects, and to show cause why it should be repealed, or why another ought to be substituted in its place. I have always held it an opinion (making it also my practice) that it is better to obey a bad law, making use at the same time of every argument to show its errors and procure its repeal, than forcibly to violate it; because the precedent of breaking a bad law might weaken the force, and lead to a discretionary violation of those which are good.” p.155

“Mankind are not now to be told they shall not think, or they shall not read; and publications that go no farther than to investigate principles of government, to invite men to reflect, and to show the errors and excellences of different systems, have a right to appear.” p.156

“Such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.” p.158

“The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their laws; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence then the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost every thing which is ascribed to government.” p.161

"The more perfect civilization is, the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself.” p.163

“Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable. It has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties.” p.183   

“When it shall be said in 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 are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness’: — when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government.” p.250

“The greatest forces that can be brought into the field of revolutions, are reason and common interest. Where these can have the opportunity of acting, opposition dies with fear, or crumbles away by conviction.” p.250


Quotations by Thomas Paine from "Age of Reason, 2"

“As to the learning that any person gains from school education, it serves only, like a small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for himself afterwards. Every person of learning is finally his own teacher, the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are never so lasting as when they begin by conception.” p.315


Quotations by Thomas Paine from "Agrarian Justice"

“Poverty … is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures.” p.337

“No person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, then he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, …” p.341
   
“It is not charity but a right — not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches because they are capable of good.” p.346


Quotations by Thomas Paine from "Crisis V"

“If there is a sin superior to every other, it is that of witful and offensive war. Most other sins are circumscribed within narrow limits, that is, the power of one man cannot give them a very general extension, and many kinds of sins have only a mental existence from which no infection arises; but he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.” p.69


The following quotation by Thomas Paine is my favorite: - “The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”


"Every time our country has gotten in trouble and we need to reach into our history for inspiration, we turn to Tom Paine. “Rebels, reformers, and critics such as Frances Wright, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ernestine Rose, Susan B. Anthony, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Parsons, Mark Twain, Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Alfred Bingham, Franklin Roosevelt, A.J. Muse, Saul Alinsky, C.. Wright Mills, and innumerable others right down to the present generation rediscovered Paine’s career and work and drew ideas, inspiration, and encouragement from this… Historically, we have turned to our revolutionary past at times of national crisis and upheaval, when the very purpose and promise of the nation were at risk or in doubt. Facing wars, depressions, and other travails and traumas, we have sought consolation, guidance, inspiration and validation. Some of us have wanted to converse with the Founders and others to argue or do battle with them. As one historian has noted: ‘The Founders have come to symbolize more than just their own accomplishments and beliefs, what did (they) really stand for? This is another way of asking. What is America? What does it mean to be an American?’ “  from the introduction to "Thomas Paine and the Promise of America" by Harvey Kaye