Prof. C. A. Van Tyne: "It was a firebrand which set aflame the ready political material in America."
"Every living man in America in 1776 who could read, read 'Common Sense.'... This book was the arsenal to which colonists went for their mental weapons."—Theodore Parker.
Mrs. Robert Burns Peattie: "Men, women and children read it. It was for them an education."
C. W. A. Veditz, LL.B.: "The work of Paine became the text book of the new era."
Sydney G. Fisher: "Its phrases became household words on the lips of every man in the patriot party."
Henry W. Edson: "Its concise, simple and unanswerable style won thousands to the cause."
Edward Channing: "It was read and debated in smithy and shop and converted thousands."
Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton: "Much that Paine wrote was so simple, so convincing, such 'common sense,' that thousands read it and concluded that separation was necessary."
William Cullen Bryant and Sydney Howard Gay: "Everybody read it and nearly everybody was influenced by it."
Pennsylvania Evening Post (March 17, 1776): "'Common Sense' hath made independents of the majority of the country."