Thomas Paine quotes

1. 
   The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
2. Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
3. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
4. These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. 
5. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
6. I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.
   
7. Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
8. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
9. Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true.
10. Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
11. 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.
12. Time makes more converts than reason.
13. When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
14. It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.
15. One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
16. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
17. A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
18. Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
19. Character is much easier kept than recovered.
20. My mind is my own church.
21. SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. 
22. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.   (Think Barry Goldwater, “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”).
23. There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.  (Think 250 years before “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman).

What is amazing about this list is how familiar all these quotes are and that one man, the under-appreciated Thomas Paine, wrote them all.