I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles.

I can never pick up a thing without wishing to improve it.

I am quite correctly described as 'more of a sponge than an inventor....'

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.

The man who doesn’t make up his mind to cultivate the habit of thinking misses the greatest pleasure in life.

The biggest failure of man is that he gives up before he realizes how close he was to success.

What you are will show in what you do.