Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

The saying is a blunt imperative about collective action: in any shared endeavor, a person should either take responsibility and lead, support the effort by following, or stop obstructing progress. Its force comes from framing indecision and interference as equally harmful when a group needs momentum. In modern usage it often appears in business, politics, and military contexts as a call for decisiveness and accountability. However, despite frequent attribution to Thomas Paine, the phrase reads as a much later piece of American vernacular rhetoric rather than Paine’s documented Revolutionary-era prose, so its significance is chiefly proverbial rather than Painean.