Prof. Ernst Haeckel: "Thomas Paine, the immortal author of the celebrated books, 'Age of Reason,' 'Common Sense,' 'Rights of Man,' and 'Crisis,' belongs to those meritorious Truththinkers who during their lifetime were not accorded the honor and acknowledgment that they well merited. The traditional historians of schoolbooks not only neglected him for many years but deliberately maligned and slandered him."
"Religious bigots have done all in their power to defame his character and rob him of the laurels with which we crown him to-day."—Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
D. M. Bennett: "Does a man with such a brilliant career, one having made such a magnificent record, and one to whom the world owes far more than it can ever pay, deserve to have his name maligned, his memory blackened, and all his actions and motives belied and misrepresented? Is it honorable? Is it manly? Is it just?"
Helen H. Gardener: "So long as a man, whether he be layman, bishop, cardinal or pope, is willing to bear false witness against his neighbor, whether that neighbor be living or dead, just so long will all the blood of all the Redeemers of all the nations of the earth be unable to wash his soul white enough to place it beside that of the patriot hero, Thomas Paine."
William T. Stead: "Paine and Ingersoll are assailed by the same weapons, subjected to the same aspersions, and misrepresented in the same merciless fashion as He [Christ] was assailed and misrepresented by the orthodox of his time.... If it is right to treat Paine and Ingersoll in this harsh, carping, uncharitable, malevolent fashion, then it is equally right to apply it to the founder of the faith."
Elmina Drake Slenker: "And this mild work, the 'Age of Reason,' is the real cause of all the cruel calumnies that the world has circulated about the hero, the scholar, the philosopher, the scientist, the inventor, the humanitarian, Thomas Paine."
Lillian Leland: "Paine... had ideals of intellectual and religious freedom, and was flung down from the pedestal of honor, broken, cast off and ostracized for venturing to criticise the received forms of religion."
"The replies to Thomas Paine," says George W. Foote of London, "were the work of Christian ruffians. Bishop Watson was the only one who attempted to answer Paine's arguments. The others only called him names; apparently on the principle that to charge a Freethinker with drunkenness and profligacy is the shortest and easiest way of proving that the Bible is the Word of God."
George E. Macdonald of New York, says: "The strongest defense of the Bible against the 'Age of Reason' was the allegation that Paine drank brandy, although the Bible commends liquor drinking and the ministers of that period were unrestricted in their potations."
"Around New Rochelle, where Thomas Paine lived, and where this myth about his drunkenness has its geography, there were deacons by the dozen who were drinking regularly more than Thomas Paine ever drank, without in the slightest degree affecting their religious reputation. I speak of these things, which I have investigated, because I feel so strongly the wrong which has been done to this man."—Edward D. Mead.