"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but thi...
My own mind is my own church.
More Thomas Paine quotes
"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
"But with respect to religion itself, without regard to names, and as directing itself from the universal family of mankind to the divine object of ado...
"if every one is left to judge of his own religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is wrong; but if they are to judge of each other’s religi...
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more t...
"I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to anoth...
"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
"Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her cou...
"All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.
"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this...
"We must be compelled to hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and new law called the Old and new Testament, to be impositions, fables and forger...