Thomas Paine Quotations

Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
One of America's Founding Fathers and holder of the title The Father of the American Revolution.

"Yet this is trash that the Church imposes upon the world as the Word of God; this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the Holy Bible! This is the rubbish called Revealed Religion!" Thomas Paine

"Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good." Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

"To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead." Thomas Paine, The Crisis

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system." Thomas Paine

"It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man." Thomas Paine

"There is scarcely any part of science, or anything in nature, which those imposters and blasphemers of science, called priests, as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, perverted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and falsehood." Thomas Paine

"The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on nothing; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing and admits of no conclusion." Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind." Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense." Thomas Paine

"The Bible is a book that has been read more, and examined less, than any book that ever existed." Thomas Paine

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon that the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel." Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion." Thomas Paine