Prof. Lester F. Ward, LL.D.: "Thanks to Paine and other great reformers, we have emerged from the condition where the political struggle is the main issue. In other words political liberty has been attained."
T. J. Bowles, M. D.: "At the close of the eighteenth century it dawned upon the minds of the immortal Paine, Jefferson and Franklin that all men are created equal, and this conception born in the minds of this trinity of saviors made the nineteenth century the most marvelous and the happiest period in the history of the world."
Earl John Francis Stanley Russell: "A great reformer and an illustrious heretical pioneer."
"His name stands for mental freedom and moral courage."—George W. Foote.
"Thomas Paine was a heroic innovator. He said what he thought and he meant what he said."—Rev. George Burman Foster.
John Wesley Jarvis: "He devoted his whole life to the attainment of two objects—rights of man and freedom of conscience."
Prof. H. M. Kottinger, A. M.: "Thomas Paine fought as courageously for religious liberty as he did for civil liberty."
"I dare not say how much of what our Union is owing and enjoying to-day—its independence—its ardent belief in, and substantial practice of, radical human rights—and the severance of its government from all ecclesiastical and superstitious dominions—I dare not say how much of all this is owing to Thomas Paine, but I am inclined to think a good portion of it decidedly is."—Walt. Whitman.
"It was his clear head and brave and righteous soul that inspired the men who declared our independence, and put into the Constitution of the United States such a veto against ecclesiastical domination as has defied its proud and conceited usurpation to the present day."—Elizur Wright.
H. Lee-Warner: "Its [Thetford's] great man who taught the world to respect the right of free-thought."