Quotes by Thomas Paine

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

Character is much easier kept than recovered.

Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

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.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it the superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

But such is the irresistable nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.

It is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be taken into consideration.