Dr. Benjamin Rush: "'Common Sense' burst from the press with an effect which has rarely been produced by types and paper in any age or country."
Hon. Salma Hale: "The effect of the pamphlet in making converts was astonishing, and is probably without precedent in the annals of literature."
James Cheetham (Paine's basest calumniator): "Speaking a language which the colonists had felt but not thought, its popularity, terrible in its consequences to the parent country, was unexampled in the history of the press."
General Charles Lee: "Have you [Washington] seen the pamphlet 'Common Sense'? I never saw such a masterly irresistible performance."
"He burst forth on the world like Jove in thunder."
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History: "Its trumpet tones awakened the continent, and made every patriot's heart beat with intense emotion."
J. Dorman Steele, Ph. D.: "Every line glowed with the spirit of liberty, and men's hearts were thrilled as they read."
Larned's Ready Reference History: "A more effective popular appeal never went to the bosoms of a nation.... Its effect was instantaneous and tremendous."
Henry Cabot Lodge: "The pamphlet marked an epoch, was a very memorable production; from the time of its publication the tide flowing in the direction of independence began to race with devouring swiftness to high water mark."
Encyclopedia Britannica (10th Ed.)—"There is a complete concurrence of testimony that Paine's pamphlet issued on the first of January, 1776, was a turning point in the struggle, that it roused and consolidated public feeling, and swept waverers along with the tide."