Thomas Paine

"Ignorant and cool, is the slowest thing known to move toward intelligence."

"The best security for any government is a well-educated people."

"Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe."

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions."

"The errors of one age become the truths of the next."

"Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners and morals than the knowledge of truth."

"The mind is ever a stranger to absolute rest."

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

"The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately."

"To know whether it be the will of God that you should do, or not do, any particular thing, examine it by the principle of reason."

"The soul of man is immortal and eternal."

"War is the gambling table of governments."

"The honor of a nation is its life."

"Legends are legitimate and serve the purpose of elevating the divine character."

"Real virtue does not consist in maceration of the body and torturing of the mind."

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

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

"The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home."

"We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather bed."

"The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark."

"Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice."

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

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

"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse."

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."

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

"Character is much easier kept than recovered."

"Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person."

"The real intellectual community of mankind must transcend national boundaries."

"Reputation is an idle and false invention and ought not to be followed."