Thomas Paine Quotes
It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.
Paine, Thomas. The American Crisis, No. 3. Styner and Cist, 1777, p. 2.
This is one of the proverbs of King Solomon of the Jews, son of King David. This quotation urges a leader to avoid advisors and appointees who do not tell the truth.
Thomas Paine was an English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and helped inspire the patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights. Historian Saul K. Padover described him as "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination".
