Prof. Goldwin Smith: "Colonial resolution had been screwed to the sticking point by Tom Paine, the stormy petrel of three countries, with his pamphlet 'Common Sense.'"
Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews: "Most potent of all as a cause of the resolution to separate was Thomas Paine's pamphlet 'Common Sense'."
"No writing ever more instantly swung men to its humor."—Woodrow Wilson.
Mary L. Booth: "This eloquent production severed the last link that bound the Colonies to the mother country."
Mary Howitt: "The cause of Independence took as it were a definite form from this moment."
Guilliam Tell Poussin: "It rendered the sentiment of Independence national."
"The notion of a new State, wholly free from Great Britain, first found full and convincing expression in Paine's 'Common Sense'."—London Times.
Gen. William A. Stokes: "When 'Common Sense' was published a great blow was struck. It was felt from New England to the Carolinas; it resounded throughout the world."
The sympathy and assistance of liberty-loving Europeans contributed much to the success of the Revolution, and this was due largely to the influence of Paine's "Common Sense," which was printed in nearly every tongue and read in nearly every country of Continental Europe. Even in England thousands of copies were circulated, and the American party, the party of Chatham, Fox and Burke, was greatly strengthened, while the influence of the king and his ministry was correspondingly weakened by the effect of its masterly arguments.
Lord Erskine: "In that great and calamitous conflict, Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine fought in the same field together, but with very different success. Mr. Burke spoke to a Parliament in England, such as Sir George Saville describes it, having no ears but for sounds that flattered its corruptions. Mr. Paine, on the other hand, spoke to the people, reasoned with them, told them they were bound by no subjection to any sovereignty further than their own benefit connected them, and, by these powerful arguments, prepared the minds of the American people for that glorious, just, and happy Revolution."