Thomas Paine

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

"These are the times that try men's souls."

"It is forbidden to forbid."

"The strength of the commonwealth is in the honesty of its people."

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

"Knowledge is power."

"The true source of terror is dependence."

"Independence is my happiness."

"Suspicion is the companion of mean souls."

"Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to the progressive state of the human mind."

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

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

"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."

"There is some hidden principle of virtue which directs the wind."

"The continual progress of facts and circumstances necessarily requires a progress of theory."

"War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end."

"The present time is a time for reflection, not despair."

"A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose."

"Belief is not the proof of doctrine."

"Hard times create strong men."

"Reputation is a fickle thing, resting on the breath of others."

"The palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise."

"Civil rights have no dependence on physical strength."

"Precept and practice must go together."

"The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark."

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

"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may call it so, that mental lying has produced in society."

"The honor of a nation is its life."

"Men are made to be active and industrious."

"The Creator of man has written His style in His works of creation."