A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Personal happiness requires mental integrity and honesty with oneself.
In this quote, Thomas Paine emphasizes the importance of being true to one's own beliefs and thoughts as a foundation for achieving genuine happiness. Mental fidelity to oneself involves an unwavering commitment to one's values, principles, and internal truths, suggesting that only by aligning one's outer life with inner convictions can true happiness be attained.
Themes
HappinessSelfTruthIntegrityMental Fidelity
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal growth, one might reference this quote.
More from Thomas Paine
All quotes →That 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
Similar quotes
What humans want is not just happiness. They want justice; they want meaning.
Martin SeligmanRead
Human happiness and human satisfaction must ultimately come from within oneself. It is wrong to expect some final satisfaction to come from money or from a computer.
Dalai LamaRead
Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins.
Oscar WildeRead
I ate apple pie and ice cream—it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer. There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I looked in Des Moines that afternoon—they were coming home from high school—but I had no time for thoughts like that…So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.
Jack KerouacRead
All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ, they all aim at the same end.
Blaise PascalRead