Browse 6 quotations connecting Thomas Paine with Humanity, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Each quotation is included because its central idea connects with this theme, not simply because one matching word appears in the sentence.
Sources represented here include Rights of Man, Common Sense, The Age of Reason. Keeping the work and source note beside each quotation makes differences in setting, speaker and emphasis easier to see.
Sources represented here include Rights of Man, Common Sense, The Age of Reason.
“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”
Paine enlarges a local political conflict into a broader argument about principles that affect people beyond one country or generation.
Source note: Common Sense, Introduction; the sentence opens Paine’s attempt to frame the colonial dispute in universal rather than merely local terms.
“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
Paine places moral allegiance beyond national or sectarian identity, presenting humanity at large and practical good-doing as more fundamental than loyalty to a particular place or religious label.
Source note: Rights of Man, Part II, Project Gutenberg public-domain collection #3742. The line appears in Paine’s statement of independence from place or person while criticizing hereditary political privilege. The exact text is “my country is the world, and my religion is to do good,” not the later expanded attribution “all mankind are my brethren.”
“Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government.”
Paine attributes much social conflict to institutions and inherited political systems rather than treating hostility as an unavoidable feature of human nature.
Source note: Rights of Man, Part II; represented from the Conway public-domain collection.
“Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government.”
Paine argues that everyday social order also grows from mutual dependence, custom, exchange, and cooperation rather than being created entirely by government.
Source note: Rights of Man, Part II; the surrounding passage attributes much ordinary social coordination to society itself.
“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.”
Paine makes rights reciprocal: claiming a right for oneself entails recognizing and defending the same right in others.
Source note: Rights of Man, Part I; represented through Moncure Daniel Conway’s public-domain Project Gutenberg collection.
“I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”
Paine’s profession of faith combines deistic belief with an ethical emphasis on equality, justice, mercy, and the practical happiness of other people.
Source note: The Age of Reason, Part I, Chapter I, “The Author’s Profession of Faith”; represented from the Conway Project Gutenberg edition.