A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention; it is only the application of them that is human.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Paine argues that science is a natural discovery, while its application is a human endeavor.
In this quote, Thomas Paine emphasizes that the principles of science are inherent in nature and not mere human creations. He suggests that while humans apply scientific knowledge in various contexts, the fundamental truths of science are universal and exist independently of human interpretation or invention.
Themes
ScienceHuman InventionApplicationTruthKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about the role of science in society, one could use this quote to highlight the distinction between the discovery of scientific facts and human application.
More from Thomas Paine
All quotes βThat God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.
Thomas PaineRead
I consider the war of America against Britain as the country's war, the public's war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, for the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their own property.
Thomas PaineRead
Had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know anything of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it.
Thomas PaineRead
The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
Thomas PaineRead
To reason with goverments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected
Thomas PaineRead
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I have an instinctual distrust of conventional happy endings.
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Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
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You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself β it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of the naΓ―ve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher's ideals are.
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