Thomas Paine in Today's World

On Learning and Living
Every person of learning is finally his own teacher, the reason of which is that principles, being a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the understanding and they are never so lasting as when they begin by conception.
Thomas Paine

On Fear as a Tactic
When an objection cannot be made formidable, there is some policy in trying to make it frightful; and to substitute the yell and the war-whoop, in the place of reason, argument and good order.
Thomas Paine

On Spin, Politics, and Human Nature
The action of spinning upholds a top.
Thomas Paine

On Being What You Think
The mind of man is not sufficiently capacious to attend to every thing at once, and while it suffers itself to be eaten up by narrow prejudices or fretted by personal politics, it will have neither relish nor appetite for public virtues.
Thomas Paine

On Losing Sight of the Real Issue
It often happens that the weight of an argument is lost by the wit of setting it off; or the judgment disordered by an intemperate irritation of the passions.
Thomas Paine

On Fear and Truth
…the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.
Thomas Paine

On Paying the Taxman
When we think or talk about taxes, we ought to recollect that we lie down in peace and sleep in safety; that we can follow our farms or stores or other occupations, in prosperous tranquillity; and that these inestimable blessings are procured to us by the taxes that we pay. In this view, our taxes are properly our insurance money; they are what we pay to be made safe, and, in strict policy, are the best money we can lay out
Thomas Paine

On Willful Ignorance
Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
Thomas Paine

On Trying Too Hard to Tell the Truth
There is a general and striking difference between the genuine effects of truth itself, and the effects of falsehood believed to be truth. Truth is naturally benign; but falsehood believed to be truth is always furious. The former delights in serenity, is mild and persuasive, and seeks not the auxiliary aid of invention. The latter sticks at nothing.
Thomas Paine

On the Toll of War
It is not among the least of the calamities of a long continued war, that it unhinges the mind from those nice sensations which at other times appear so amiable. The continued spectacle of woe, blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight, moral obligations of society weakened, till the custom of acting by necessity, becomes and apology where it is truly a crime.
Thomas Paine, The Crisis

On Patriotism and its Disguise
Apostasy stalked through the land in the garb of patriotism, and the torch of treason blinded for a while the flame of liberty.

On Four Years of War in Iraq
O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principals. If the bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all the difference between wilful attack and unavoidable defence. Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make a political hobbyhorse of your religion, convince the world thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, for they likewise bear ARMS.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense

On Concern for the Present State of the Military and Its Missions
The weaker any cord is the less will it bear to be stretched, and the worse is the policy to stretch it, unless it is intended to break it.
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

On Keeping an Open Mind
I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
-Thomas Paine, Age of Reason

On Darfur
For that which is a disgrace to human nature, throws something of a shade over all the human character, and each individual feels his share of the wound that is given to the whole.
-Thomas Paine

On Patience and Understanding Among Reasonable People
There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once. Time and reason must cooperate with each other to the final establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be first convinced have not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction operates more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy.
-Thomas Paine

On Saving the Elephant
"The most effectual method to keep men honest is to enable them to live so. (…)

On Learning From the Past
"Were a man to be totally deprived of memory, he would be incapable of forming any just opinion."
There is the memory of a singles person's life, that of whole nations and tribes, and the collective memory of all humanity. (…)
On What Makes a Cold Heart
"Arrogance and meanness, though in appearance opposite, are vices of the same heart."
Through arrogance we find a haughty sense of pride that disregards all but itself. (…)