01c. 1773 ADAnd the final event to himself [Mr. Burke] has been, that, as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
03c. 1773 ADThe 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 / quote ↗
04c. 1773 ADThe animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning, he blunders and betrays.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
05c. 1773 ADA thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
06c. 1773 ADMost other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest, their suffering and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
07c. 1773 ADWhen the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
08c. 1773 ADReputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
10c. 1773 ADThese 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 anything 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.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
11c. 1773 AD(Speaking of future state) “Those who are neither good nor bad, or are too insignificant for notice, will be dropt entirely. This is my opinion. It is consistent with my idea of God’s justice, and with the reason that God has given me, and I gratefully know that He has given me a large share of that Divine gift”(!)Thomas Paine / quote ↗
12c. 1773 ADReputation is what men and women think of us; Character is what God and the angels know of us.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
13c. 1773 ADThe Quakers have contracted themselves too much by leaving the works of God out of their system. Though I reverence their philanthropy, I can not help smiling at the conceit, that, if the taste of a Quaker could have been consulted at the creation, what a silent and drab-coloured creation it would have been! Not a flower would have blossomed its gaieties, nor a bird been permitted to sing.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
14c. 1773 ADThough avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
15c. 1773 ADThe duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and simple, and consists but of two points: his duty to God, which every man must feel; and, with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
16c. 1773 ADAll the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man, or the unity of man, as being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
17c. 1773 ADGovernment, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest, and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
18c. 1773 ADOne of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings is, that nature disapproves it; otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass in place of a lion.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
19c. 1773 ADHow impious is the title of "sacred majesty" applied to a worm, who, in the midst of his splendor, is crumbling into dust!Thomas Paine / quote ↗
21c. 1773 ADIndependence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
22c. 1773 ADLet them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.Thomas Paine / quote ↗
