"The pamphlets that stirred like a trumpet call the flagging energies of a desponding people."—Rev. John Snyder.
"General Greene made him one of his aides-de-camp; but an appointment on that staff, during those weeks, carried with it very little, either of privilege or luxury. In the flight from Fort Lee Paine lost his baggage and his private papers; but he had kept or borrowed a pen. He began to write at Newark, the first stage in the calamitous retreat; and he worked all night at every halting place until his new pamphlet was completed. It was published in Philadelphia on the 19th of December, under the title of 'The Crisis,' and at once flew like wildfire through all the towns and villages of the Confederacy."—Sir George Trevelyan.
This, the first number of the "Crisis," opens with these words: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph."
Samuel Eliot: "His later pamphlets, issued during the war under the name of the 'Crisis,' were of equal power [to 'Common Sense']."
Encyclopedia of Social Reform: "The 'Crisis' exerted wide influence for Independence and Republicanism."
Albert Bushnell Hart, LL.D.: "The 'Crisis' [sixteen numbers], written by Paine between 1776 and 1783, exercised an enormous influence over men and events during the Revolution."
Albert Payson Terhune: "He plunged, heart and soul, into the struggle for freedom. His 'Common Sense' and other pamphlets [the 'Crisis'] were such strong and eloquent pleas for liberty that Washington ordered some of them read aloud to the patriot armies."
National Cyclopedia of American Biography: "Its [the 'Crisis'] initial number was, by the order of General Washington, read aloud to each regiment and to each detachment."
William S. Stryker: "The effect of its strong patriotic sentences was apparent upon the spirits of the army."
George T. Cram: "The whole patriot army was inspirited by it."