Thomas Paine Quotes
Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying
Paine, Thomas. The Writings of Thomas Paine. Edited by Moncure Daniel Conway, vol. 4, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1896, p. 507.
His daughter had just succumbed to the disease.
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".