"Incisive sentences,... as direct and vivid in their appeal as any sentences of Swift."—Woodrow Wilson.
"Like a thunderbolt from the sky came Paine's magnificent argument for liberty... No pamphlet ever written sold in such vast numbers, nor did any ever before or since produce such marvelous results."—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
"Who could with almost one stroke of his pen, turn the people in a radically new direction? Who must exert an influence that had never, in any crisis of history, been exerted by one man before? The American Republic today, with its illimitable glory and belting a continent, can only reply: Thomas Paine!"—Samuel P. Putnam.
"The soul of Thomas Paine went forth in that book. Every line of it glittered with the fires of his brain. It was written as a poet writes his song.... It was like the flowing of a fountain, the sweep of a wind, the rush of a comet."—Ibid.
The publication of Thomas Paine's immortal pamphlet, 'Common Sense,' will ever deserve to rank among the supremely important events of history. The farther we are removed from it in time the larger it will loom."—Rev. Thomas B. Gregory.
"This work marks an era in the history of the world. Its interest will last longer than nations."—Hon. Elizur Wright.
Universal Magazine (April, 1793. From a review of the "Rights of Man."): "And now courteous reader, we leave Mr. Paine entirely to thy mercy; what wilt thou say of him? Wilt thou address him? 'Thou art a troubler of privileged orders—we will tar and feather thee; nobles abhor thee, and kings think thee mad!' Or wilt thou put on thy spectacles, study Mr. Paine's physiognomy, purchase his print, hang it over thy chimney-piece, and, pointing to it, say: 'this is no common man!'"
"Those who know the book ['Rights of Man'] only by hearsay as the work of a furious incendiary would be surprised at the dignity, force and temperance of the style."—Encyclopedia Britannica.
"The 'Rights of Man' is acknowledged to be the greatest work ever written for political freedom. This masterpiece gave free speech, and a free press to England and America."—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
"The thinking men of England now revere the memory of Thomas Paine for his great work in the nation's behalf. The most important of the many reforms England has undertaken in the century that has elapsed since it outlawed Paine have been brought about by Paine's masterly work."—Elbert Hubbard.