"With a soul kindled into one steady blaze, he plies that fast-moving quill. That quill puts down words on paper, words that shall burn into the brains of kings like arrows winged with fire and pointed with vitriol. Go on, brave author, sitting in your garret alone at this dead hour, go on, on through the silent hours, on and God's blessings fall like breezes of June upon your damp brow, on and on, for you are writing the thoughts of a nation into birth."--_George Lippard_. Pennsylvania Journal (January 10, 1776): "This day was published and is now selling by Robert Bell, in Third street, price two shillings, 'Common Sense addressed to the inhabitants of North America.'" From this book came the world's first and greatest republic, the first realization of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Eloquently he pleads for separation and independence: "The birthday of a new world is at hand." "Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'Tis time to part." "The independence of America should have been considered as dating its era from, and published by, the first musket that was fired against her." "O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger and England hath given her warning to depart. O receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind." Benjamin Franklin: "A pamphlet that had prodigious effects." Justin Winsor: "It was printed and reprinted in Philadelphia in English and once in German, and in the same year reprinted in Salem, Newbury-port, Providence, Boston, Newport, New York, Charleston, and also in London and Edinburgh." Rev. Ashbel Green, D. D, (Chaplain to Congress): "The pamphlet had a greater run than any other ever published in our country." William Massey, M. P.: "'Common Sense' had an immense circulation." Francis Bowen, A. M.: "It had an enormous sale." Historians' History of the World: "More than one hundred thousand copies of his 'Common Sense' were sold in a short time." Prof. John Fiske: "More than a hundred thousand copies were speedily sold, and it carried conviction wherever it went." Salmonsen's Conversationslexicon: "It had an immense sale (120,000 copies) and exerted an enormous influence." Samuel M. Jackson, D.D., LL.D.: "'Common Sense' (120,000 copies were sold in the first three months) struck the keynote of the situation by advocating Independence and a Republican form of government." (Referring to the sale of "Common Sense," Paine's biographer, Dr. Moncure D. Conway, says: "In the end probably half a million copies were sold.") Eben Greenough Scott: "It was a plea for independence and a continental government."