Thomas Paine Quotes

Hypocrisy is a fearful evil, and every thing which has a tendency to produce it should be avoided.

Of all things in the world that stink in the nostrils of men, hypocrisy is the worst.

I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.

… they seem to be such as would not swear, whore, nor be drunk, but they would lie, cozen and deceive.

Put away from you a dissembling mouth.

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.

I don't lie," I lied.

In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing.

The life even of a just man is a round of petty frauds; that of a knave a series of greater. We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.

Even a little untruth destroys a man, as a drop of poison ruins milk.

Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.

Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, and then fears men.

It is dishonorable to say one thing and think another; how much more dishonorable to write one thing and think another.

We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.

Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.

He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.

Nowadays those are rewarded who make right appear wrong.

I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.

Whenever there are great virtues, it's a sure sign something's wrong.

Behavior which appears superficially correct but is intrinsically corrupt always irritates those who see below the surface.