Thomas Paine

"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind."

"Reputation is an idle and false invention, and ought not to be followed; he that is meritorious will be so whether he is praised or censured."

"It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences, and also theology, as dark studies, which the professor of them makes more mysterious by going out of the common road of analysis."

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of."

"The world is but a school of inquiry."

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

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

"The real strength of a government consists in being loved by the people."

"It is forbidden to forbid."

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

"The best Constitution would be one which could peacefully and constitutionally remove bad governors."

"Common sense will always command the attention of mankind; power and avarice will plot and conspire."

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

"Belief is not the proof of doctrine."

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason."

"I am a friend to all religions and an enemy to none."

"Cunning has effect from the weakness and not from the strength of those who practice it."

"The only security of all is in a free press."

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly."

"Poverty, however light, sits ill upon a man; unless he bears it as the effects of misfortune or misjudgment."

"I have always considered the independence of the press as the foundation of all the civil liberties of a people."

"It is by the aid of Mathematical Knowledge that geographical and seasonable discoveries have been made."

"The Revolution was worth far more than it cost."

"To establish ourselves in the world, we must do all the good we possibly can."

"The present war is a war against all nature, and if those who rashly and ignorantly bring it on are the first to fall victims to it, it is no more than justice."

"Individuality is the aim of political liberty."

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

"It is an affront to treat falsehood with complacence."

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

"When all the formalities and ceremonies of religion are rejected, the heart is left to itself."