Thomas Paine

"To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."

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

"The greatest remedy for anger is delay."

"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society."

"The mind, like a rich soil in a neglected state, becomes overgrown with weeds."

"Universal peace can only be maintained by universal justice."

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

"The true birthright of every human being is a life of happiness and virtue."

"Thought without reflection is like a journey without a destination."

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

"Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated."

"It is not in the still calm of life that men display themselves to the best advantage."

"Despotism can be exercised by many, but liberty by few."

"The case and the cause of America is the case and cause of all mankind."

"That government is best which governs least."

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression."

"Knowledge without practice is but half knowledge."

"The merit of an action lies in the doing of it, not in its success."

"One of the strongest motives to seek and to love truth is the desire to found personal actions upon it."

"There is a morning of reason rising upon man on the subject of government."

"Youth must make its own discoveries and must arrive at its own conclusions."

"I believe in the equality of man and I believe that religious duties consist of doing justice and loving mercy."

"A true patriot is neither a democrat nor a republican; he is a human being."

"The world is but a stage where man must play a certain part in silence and in exile."

"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away for expedience."

"Mankind are not born with saddles on their backs, nor some booted and spurred to ride them."

"Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the generations which preceded it."

"The instant formal government is short of wisdom, it perceives that nothing is done so well by the assistance of government."

"It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry."

"When the rich plunder the poor of his rights it becomes an example to the poor to plunder the rich of his property."