The Wisdom of Thomas Paine

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right."

"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."

"An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot."

"Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true."

"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them."

"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."

"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."

"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."

"My mind is my own church."

"The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security."

"To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches."

"War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes."

"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon."