Royal Tyler: "That head which worked such mickle woe to courts and kings."

Dr. Edmund Robinet: "A wise and lucid intellect."

James Thompson Callender: "He possesses both, talent and courage."

Walter Savage Landor:

Zells Encyclopedia: "He early distinguished himself by his literary abilities."

Cyclopedia of American Literature: "The merits of Paine's style as a prose writer are very great."

B. F. Underwood: "Thomas Paine's style as a writer, in some respects, has never been equaled. Every sentence that he wrote was suffused with the light of his own luminous mind, and stamped with his own intense individuality of character."

"There is a peculiar originality in his style of thought and expression, his diction is not vulgar or illiterate, but nervous, simple and scientific.... Paine, like the young Spartan warrior, went into the field stripped bare to the last thread of prudent conventional disguise; and thus not only fixed the gaze of men upon his intrepid singularity, but exhibited the vigor of his faculties in full play."—Rev. George Croly.

John Lendrum: "The style, manner, and language of the author is singular and fascinating."

"He was a magnificent writer of the English language."—Henry Frank.

"He is the best English writer we know."—Gilbert Vale.

"Ease, fluidity, grace, imagination, energy, earnestness, mark his style."—Elbert Hubbard.

"Paine is the first American writer who has a literary style, and we have not had so many since but that you may count them on the fingers of one hand."—Ibid.

L. Carroll Judson: "His intellectual powers suddenly burst into a blaze of light."

John Horne Tooke: "You are like Jove coming down upon us in a shower of gold."

"The man who coined the intellectual gold of the Eighteenth Century was Thomas Paine."—L. K. Washburn.

Ebenezer Elliott: "Paine is the greatest master of metaphor I have ever read."

"He was not only master of metaphor, he was master of principles. He imparted life to great ideas."—George Jacob Holyoake.

"The keenness of his intellect was matched by the brilliancy of his imagination. He stated a truth in a way that men could see, hear, and feel it. Take the following epigram: 'To argue with a man who has renounced the use of Reason is like administering medicine to the dead.'"—George W. Foote.

Prof. William Smyth: "Paine is a writer to be numbered with those few who are so supereminently fitted to address the great mass of mankind."

Dr. Charles Botta: "No writer, perhaps, ever possessed in a higher degree the art of moving and guiding the public at his will."

Elroy McKendree Avery: "No writer ever had a greater influence upon the events of his own time than he."

"He threw the charms of poetry over the statue of reason," says Stephen Simpson, "and made converts to liberty as if a power of fascination presided over his pen."

John Adolphus: "He took with great judgment, a correct aim at the feelings and prejudices of those whom he intended to influence."

Hezekiah Butterworth: "He had a surprising power of direct forcible argument."

William Hazlitt: "Paine affected to reduce things to first principles, to announce self-evident truths."

W. J. Fox, M. P.: "A keen and powerful intellect, and a philosophical mind going to the foundation of every question; bringing first principles forward in a luminous and impressive manner.

Robert James Mackintosh: "His strong coarse sense and bold dogmatism conveyed in an instinctively popular style made Paine a dangerous enemy always."

M. Gerard: "You know too well the prodigious effects produced by the writings of this celebrated personage."

Madame Roland: "The boldness of his conceptions, the originality of his style, the striking truths which he boldly throws out in the midst of those whom they offend, must necessarily have produced great effects."

Edward C. Reichwald: "He was an intellectual gladiator who won his victories upon the field of thought."

Boston Herald: "There is no better illustration in all history than exists in Paine's writings of Bulwer's aphorism, 'The pen is mightier than the sword.'"

Hon. John J. Lentz, M. C.: "The pen of the author of 'Common Sense' and the 'Crisis' did more to liberate the Colonies than did the sword of the commander in chief of the Colonial armies."

Prof. William Denton: "The pen of Paine accomplished more for American liberty than the sword of Washington."

General Lee of Revolutionary fame says: "The pen of Thomas Paine did more to achieve our Independence than did the sword of Washington." Joel Barlow, one of the most popular literary men of his time, a chaplain in the American Revolution and a fellow-worker of Paine for political liberty, both in England and France, says: "We may venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that the great American cause owed as much to the pen of Paine as to the sword of Washington." Even Paine's vilest calumniator, Cheetham, makes this admission: "His pen was an appendage to the army as necessary and as formidable as its cannon."

Reuben Post Halleck, L.L. D.: "Some have said that the pen of Thomas Paine was worth more to the cause of liberty than twenty thousand men. In the darkest hours he inspired the colonists with hope and enthusiasm... He had an almost Shakespearean intuition of what would appeal to the exigencies of each case."

"The real man back of the American Revolution was the man who had the ideas and not the man behind the guns.... Paine fought with the weapon of the future, and he was one of the very first that made it powerful. Paine's weapon was the pen, not the sword. Washington conquered small groups of men that had been living twenty or thirty years, but Thomas Paine conquered the prejudices of thousands of years."—Herbert N. Casson.

Thomas Jefferson: "These two persons [Lord Bolingbroke and Thomas Paine] differed remarkably in the style of their writings, each leaving a model of what is most perfect in both extremes of the simple' and the sublime. No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language."

Abraham Lincoln: "I never tire of reading Paine."

Capel Lofft: "I am glad Paine is living: he cannot be even wrong without enlightening mankind, such is the vigor of his intellect, such the acuteness of his research, and such the force and vivid perspicuity of his expression."

Augustine Birrell, M. P.: "Paine was without knowing it, a born journalist. His capacity for writing on the spur of the moment was endless, and his delight in doing so was boundless."

Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott: "He was perhaps the most popular pamphleteer of the country."

Library of The World's Best Literature: "The pamphlets of Thomas Paine were doubtless in their time 'half battles.' Clear, logical, homely, by turns warning, appealing, commanding, now sharply satirical, now humorous, now pathetic, always desperately in earnest, always written in admirably simple English, they constituted their author, in the judgment of many, the foremost pamphleteer of the eighteenth century."

Lord Brougham: "The most remarkable spirit in pamphlet literature was Thomas Paine.... His style was a model of terseness and force."

"This singular power of clear, vigorous exposition made him unequaled as a pamphleteer."—Sir Leslie Stephen.

London Times (June 8, 1909): "Paine was the greatest of pamphleteers; more potent in influence on affairs than Swift, Beaumarchais, or Courier, more varied in his activity than any of them; his words influencing the actors in two of the chief political revolutions of the world and prime movers in a religious revolution scarcely less important."

"Perhaps someone, even in far off times, digging in the past, will come upon his books and will say, 'These were not words; they were events, in political history. This was a born leader who could make men march to victory or defeat.'"

Manchester Guardian (June 8, 1909): "He and his works became the great influence which set up everywhere constitutional societies and encouraged political and religious freedom of thought. He became the interpreter to England of the principles of the two Revolutions, and his words and ideas leavened speculations among the masses of the English people, and still leaven them today. We may forget him or remember him awry, but the very stuff of our brains is woven in the loom of his devising."

James K. Hosmer, LL. D.: "Few writers have exerted a more powerful influence since the world began, if the claim set forth at the time and never refuted be just, that his 'Common Sense' made possible the Declaration of Independence and therefore the United States of America."

Constitutional Gazette (Feb. 24, 1776): "The author introduces [in 'Common Sense'] a new system of polices as widely different from the old as the Copernican system is from the Ptolemaic. This extraordinary performance contains as surprising a discovery in politics as the works of Sir Isaac Newton do in philosophy."

"It would be difficult to name any human composition which has had an effect at once so instant, so extended and so lasting."—Sir George Trevelyan.

Paul Louis Courrier (1824): "Never did any portly volume effect so much for the human race. Rallying all hearts and minds to the party of Independence, it decided the issue of that great conflict which, ended for America, is still proceeding all over the rest of the world."

"Incisive sentences,... as direct and vivid in their appeal as any sentences of Swift."—Woodrow Wilson.

"Like a thunderbolt from the sky came Paine's magnificent argument for liberty... No pamphlet ever written sold in such vast numbers, nor did any ever before or since produce such marvelous results."—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

"Who could with almost one stroke of his pen, turn the people in a radically new direction? Who must exert an influence that had never, in any crisis of history, been exerted by one man before? The American Republic today, with its illimitable glory and belting a continent, can only reply: Thomas Paine!"—Samuel P. Putnam.

"The soul of Thomas Paine went forth in that book. Every line of it glittered with the fires of his brain. It was written as a poet writes his song.... It was like the flowing of a fountain, the sweep of a wind, the rush of a comet."—Ibid.

The publication of Thomas Paine's immortal pamphlet, 'Common Sense,' will ever deserve to rank among the supremely important events of history. The farther we are removed from it in time the larger it will loom."—Rev. Thomas B. Gregory.

"This work marks an era in the history of the world. Its interest will last longer than nations."—Hon. Elizur Wright.

Universal Magazine (April, 1793. From a review of the "Rights of Man."): "And now courteous reader, we leave Mr. Paine entirely to thy mercy; what wilt thou say of him? Wilt thou address him? 'Thou art a troubler of privileged orders—we will tar and feather thee; nobles abhor thee, and kings think thee mad!' Or wilt thou put on thy spectacles, study Mr. Paine's physiognomy, purchase his print, hang it over thy chimney-piece, and, pointing to it, say: 'this is no common man!'"

"Those who know the book ['Rights of Man'] only by hearsay as the work of a furious incendiary would be surprised at the dignity, force and temperance of the style."—Encyclopedia Britannica.

"The 'Rights of Man' is acknowledged to be the greatest work ever written for political freedom. This masterpiece gave free speech, and a free press to England and America."—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

"The thinking men of England now revere the memory of Thomas Paine for his great work in the nation's behalf. The most important of the many reforms England has undertaken in the century that has elapsed since it outlawed Paine have been brought about by Paine's masterly work."—Elbert Hubbard.

"The 'Rights of Man' will never die so long as men have rights."—Alice Hubbard.

Richard Henry Lee: "It is a performance of which any man might be proud."

"The 'Rights of Man' will be more enduring than all the piles of marble and granite man can erect."—Andrew Jackson.

Dr. Frank Crane: "It deserves a place among the dozen epoch-making books of the race.... It is a milestone in human development that marks a point of progress that never can be retraced."

General Arthur O'Connor:

Prof. Edward McChesney Sait: "Many names which were famous in the revolutionary period of the eighteenth century are heard no more; but the name of Thomas Paine still lives. It will never die; those noble writings, 'Common Sense' and 'Rights of Man,' like the verses of the Roman poet, are more lasting than bronze."

Marie Joseph Chenier: "Notable epoch in the life of this philosopher who opposed the arms of 'Common Sense' to the sword of tyranny, 'the 'Rights of Man' to the machiavelism of English politicians; and who by two immortal works has deserved well of the human race."

Victor Robinson: "Another immortal work was being penned behind French prison-bars and the hand which held the pen was the hand of Thomas Paine."

"There shone on Paine's cell in the Luxembourg a great and imperishable vision, which multitudes are still following."—Dr. Conway.

M. M. Mangasarian: "In his dungeon his pen dropped light into the darkness of Europe and America by writing the 'Age of Reason.'"

"One of the most wonderful books ever written." Edgar W. Howe.

"The 'Age of Reason' defies the grave where other books of his generation sleep."—George E. Macdonald.

"Not only the one great skeptical work of his time, but the only one which seems destined to live for all time."—J. P. Bland.

"Paine's 'Age of Reason' is a masterpiece of Rationalistic literature."—William H. Maple.

"It is a masterpiece in every particular—sound, logical and truthful."—Sir Hiram Maxim.

"There are the most varied graces of literary style, a profound and gentle philosophy, and a genuine love of humanity."—William Heaford.

Mimnermus (England): "Out of the charnel-vault of Kingcraft and Priestcraft, Rousseau and the other great French Freethinkers saw in vision the ideal society of the future. Of this new evangel Paine was the prophet and Shelley was the poet.... In the 'Rights of Man' and the 'Age of Reason,' no less than in the 'Revolt of Islam' and 'Prometheus Unbound,' the expression glows with the solemn and majestic inspiration of prophecy."

John M. Robertson, M. P.: "The enduring popularity of the chief works of Thomas Paine is not the least remarkable fact in the history of opinion. It is given to few controversial writers to keep a large audience during a hundred years."

"In Paine's public life there are three great tidal periods—the period when he was helping more than any other to make the Revolution in America; the period when, having come to Europe, after the American Revolution, he published the 'Rights of Man' and laid in England the foundations of a new democracy in the very teeth of the great reaction of which Burke was the prophet; and lastly, the period when, after his hopes from the French Revolution had substantially failed, and he expected death as his own meed, he wrote his 'Age of Reason,' significantly making his last blow the most deadly of all his strokes at the reign of tradition."

New York World: "The man whose 'Common Sense,' by Washington's testimony, 'worked a powerful change in the minds of men' toward American independence; who in the 'Rights of Man' demolished Burke's attack on the French Revolution so completely that the British government resorted to its suppression, and who in France set the world aflame with persecution mania by the 'Age of Reason,' certainly made good in three countries his title to literary rank and political power." "The three mightiest contributions of political and religious freedom which mankind had known came from the brain of Thomas Paine. What he wrote changed the whole civilized world."—L. K. Washburn.

Rev. E. P. Powell (referring to the "Crisis"): "Words of fire and logic that rang like a berserker's sword on his shield."

"The 'Crisis' is contained in sixteen numbers. They comprise a truer history of that event [American Revolution] than does any professed history of it yet written. They comprise the soul of it."—Calvin Blanchard.

"Of utterances by the pen none have achieved such vast results as Paine's 'Common Sense' and his first 'Crisis.'"—Dr. Conway.

In addition to his three literary masterpieces and the "Crisis" Paine wrote many remarkable books and pamphlets, the more important of which are the following: "Public Good," Philadelphia, 1780; "Letter to AbbÉ Raynal," Philadelphia, 1782; "Dissertation on Government," Philadelphia, 1786; "Prospects on the Rubicon," London, 1787; "Address of SociÉtÉ RÉpublicaine," Paris, 1791; "Address to the Adressers," London, 1792; "Plea for Life of Louis Capet," "French Constitution of '93," Paris, 1793; "On First Principles of Government," Paris, 1795; "Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance," published in all the languages of Europe. 1796; "Agrarian Justice," "Letter to Camille Jordan, Paris, 1797; "Essay on Dreams," "Examination of Prophecies," New York, 1807; "Reply to Bishop of Llandaff," New York, 1810; "Miscellaneous Poems,"'London, 1819.

"These [Paine's books] were battles, victories—the simplest, yet the grand and notorious facts of that wondrous war and age."—T. B. Wakeman.

M. de Bonneville, the noted French journalist and Revolutionary leader, and the almost constant companion of Paine during the ten or more years that he resided in Paris, says: "All his pamphlets have been popular and powerful. He wrote with composure and steadiness, as if under the guidance of a tutelary genius. If, for an instant, he stopped, it was always in the attitude of a man who listens. The Saint Jerome of Raphael would give a perfect idea of his contemplative recollection, to listen to the voice from on high which makes itself heard in the heart."

"When the old traditions of prejudice have passed, away, Paine's name will have its due place not only in our political but in our literary history, as that of a man of native genius whose prose bears being read beside that of Burke on the same theme, and who found in sincerity the secret of a nobler eloquence than his antagonists could draw from their stores of literature or the fountain of their ill-will."—John M. Robertson.

"He was a great writer. Cobbett knew it, Hazlitt knew it, and Landor knew it."—George W. Foote.

George Brandes: "One of the largest figures in our literary history."

Mrs. M. E. Cadwallader: "His writings have become classics. They Will live when those who vilified him are forgotten."

Pittsburgh Press: "The science of criticism, like the spectrum analysis which reveals the composition of the stars, points unerringly to Thomas Paine as the only man who could have indited that greatest of literary masterpieces, the Declaration of Independence."

That the Declaration of Independence is, in its entirety, the work of Paine probably can not be proven. That he had much to do with its composition, however, can scarcely be doubted. The circumstances attending its adoption warrant the assumption, and the style of the document confirms it. Knowing the marvelous power of Paine's pen, knowing that with it he had led the people to demand independence, to suppose that he would not be consulted, that his services would not be solicited in regard to its preparation is incredible. Had he been a member of the Continental Congress he certainly would have been selected to draft the document. He was the soul of the movement and its literary leader. The historian Gaspey says: "The Government took no steps of importance without consulting him." The fact that his name was not mentioned in connection with its authorship at the time argues nothing. Had he written every word of it neither he nor the Committee could with propriety have divulged its authorship. The authorship of state papers and other public documents is assumed by, and credited to, the officials issuing them and not to the persons who may have been employed to draft them.

"There is much evidence, both internal and external, in the Declaration, that some other person than Jefferson was the writer. There is much evidence, internal and external, that the author was Thomas Paine."—W. M. van der Weyde.

A noted writer, Albert Payson Terhune, presents the following as the principal arguments that have been adduced in support of Paine's authorship of the Declaration of Independence:

"The Declaration's first draft contained the phrase: 'Scotch and foreign mercenaries.' Jefferson was fond of the Scotch, and had two Scotch tutors; whereas Paine openly hated Scotland and its people.

"The first draft contained the word 'hath' This word is said to be found nowhere else in Jefferson's writings, while it abounds in Paine's.

"There was also in this draft a sharp rebuke to the British king for his introducing slavery into his provinces. Jefferson was a slave-holder; Paine hated slavery.

"That Jefferson, an owner of slaves, should have declared 'all men to be equal' and 'entitled to liberty,' has always seemed inconsistent.

"Though unjust taxation was one of the Revolution's chief causes, it receives very slight mention in the Declaration. Jefferson was supposedly a foe to such taxation. Paine considered the taxation problem merely as a side issue.

"Paine's notions concerning government as set forth in his 'Common Sense' are largely embodied in the Declaration.

"Jefferson's style of writing was easy and graceful. Paine's was forceful, terse, pointed. The Declaration is couched far more in the latter style than in the former.

"Phrases and words dear to Paine are scattered broadcast through the document.

"The expression 'Nature and Nature's God' fit in with Paine's favorite theory that God was to be found in Nature."

"Almost a century ago an American newspaper claimed to have proof that Jefferson did not write the Declaration, and strongly hinted that Paine wrote it.

"Jefferson, it is said, never formally claimed the authorship until after Paine's death, and was always reticent on the subject."

Walton Williams: "Ever since the Revolution there has been a tradition in certain parts of the country that the real author of the Declaration of Independence was Thomas Paine. The storm of opprobrium that beat upon Paine's name because af his religious writings almost eradicated this tradition."

Jefferson lived fifty years after the Declaration appeared. During all this time—and his silence is significant—he never claimed the authorship of the document except in the epitaph which he is said to have prepared for his tombstone. He was its accredited author and in an official sense was its author, and in this sense the claim made in his epitaph is admissible.

Nearly seventy years ago George M. Dallas, then Vice President of the United States, and an admirer of Jefferson, contended that Paine wrote the Declaration.

"Whoever may have written the Declaration, Paine was its author."—William Cobbett.

New York Sun: "In addition to his great responsibility for the literary form of the Declaration of Independence, he contributed to literature a number of phrases which have held a place."

"His phrase, 'These are the times that try men's souls,' illuminates that gigantic struggle [American Revolution] and has become one of the shibboleths of liberty."—Michael Monahan.

"No life was ever attuned to a nobler sentiment—'Where liberty is not there is my home.'"—Dr. Lucy Waite.

"'The world is my country, to do good my religion." Was ever nobler thought conceived than this?"—Eva Ingersoll Brown.

"Had Paine given to the world nothing more than that matchless phrase which he adopted as his motto, 'The world is my country; to do good is my religion,' I should still feel that he was indeed entitled to a supernal position in the galleries of Fame."—Elbert Hubbard.

"A jewel which sparkles forever on the outstretched forefinger of Time."—George W. Foote.

Peter Eckler: "Paine's political and religious writings exerted an immense influence in America, England and France during his life, and since his death that beneficent influence has increased and extended throughout the civilized world."

Horace Seaver: "Paine's writings are a noble monument to the loftiness of his aims, the brilliancy of his genius, the wealth of benevolence in his heart, and the breadth and power of his intellect."

Horace Traubel: "He will always stand there, immortal in history, a contemporary giant in whose aggressiveness and fortitude political literature discovered a new epoch. He will ever be ranked with the masters in theological innovation."

General Nathaniel Greene: "Your fame for your writings will be immortal."