Walter Savage Landor:
"Few dared such homely truths to tell,
Or wrote our English half so well."
Zells Encyclopedia: "He early distinguished himself by his literary abilities."
Cyclopedia of American Literature: "The merits of Paine's style as a prose writer are very great."
B. F. Underwood: "Thomas Paine's style as a writer, in some respects, has never been equaled. Every sentence that he wrote was suffused with the light of his own luminous mind, and stamped with his own intense individuality of character."
"There is a peculiar originality in his style of thought and expression, his diction is not vulgar or illiterate, but nervous, simple and scientific.... Paine, like the young Spartan warrior, went into the field stripped bare to the last thread of prudent conventional disguise; and thus not only fixed the gaze of men upon his intrepid singularity, but exhibited the vigor of his faculties in full play."—Rev. George Croly.
John Lendrum: "The style, manner, and language of the author is singular and fascinating."
"He was a magnificent writer of the English language."—Henry Frank.
"He is the best English writer we know."—Gilbert Vale.
"Ease, fluidity, grace, imagination, energy, earnestness, mark his style."—Elbert Hubbard.