Rev. O. B. Frothingham: "No private character has been more foully calumniated in the name of God than that of Thomas Paine."
"No page in history, stained as it is with treachery and falsehood, or cold-blooded indifference to right or wrong, exhibits a more disgraceful instance of public ingratitude than that which Thomas Paine experienced from an age and country which he had so faithfully served."—Rev. Solomon Southwick.
Referring to Paine, the Boston Herald says: "It has, perhaps, never fallen to the lot of any really great man to be so traduced in his lifetime, and, after the grave has closed over him, to have his memory so weighted down with obloquy of unsparing critics." Mrs. Bradlaugh-Bonner of England, daughter of Charles Bradlaugh, one of England's noted orators and statesmen, says: "Paine's politics were politics for the people, and the people were taught to deny him; his ideal religion was 'the Religion of Humanity,' and humanity would not even grant him a grave." Col. Ingersoll says: "I challenge the world to show that Thomas Paine ever wrote one line, one word in favor of tyranny—in favor of immorality; one line, one word against what he believed to be for the highest and best interests of mankind; one line, one word against justice, charity or liberty; and yet he has been pursued as though he had been a fiend from hell."
Harriet Law: "There are few to whom the world owes more, and probably none to whose memory it has been more ungrateful."
Edward D. Mead: "There is no other man in our religious or political history who has been the victim of such misrepresentation, of such persistent obloquy, as Thomas Paine."
"As we go back into the Dark Ages we read of the horrible atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion, and this feeling had not yet passed away during the time that Thomas Paine lived."—Admiral George W. Melville.
Hon. Andrew D. White, LL. D.: "Great, and, indeed, cruel injustice was done him in his day, and has been continued in large measure ever since."
Eastern Daily Press (England): "The fires still burn, although a hundred years have passed."
"For more than a century his name has been as a touchstone revealing the unappeasable malevolence of men's intolerance."—Mrs. Bradlaugh-Bonner.
Kumar Krishna de Varma, L. T. O. (Bombay, India): "The Orthodox have always slandered the immortal author of the 'Age of Reason' and the 'Rights of Man.'"