Author of Common Sense, the man who lit two revolutions
An English-born thinker and revolutionary propagandist who lit revolution on both sides of the Atlantic with the plainest, most forceful prose. In 1776 he anonymously published the pamphlet Common Sense, denouncing the absurdity of monarchy and urging American independence in language any commoner could grasp; it sold hundreds of thousands of copies and pushed wavering colonial opinion toward independence. He then went to France to join the Revolution and wrote Rights of Man in its defense. He worked all his life for republic and human rights, but his radicalism pleased no side, and he died in poverty — the kind of man who "lights the fire, yet is often scorched by the flame."
Before Common Sense, many colonists still hoped for reconciliation with the king. Paine told them in blunt, blazing words: for a whole continent to be ruled forever by a small island is itself absurd. The pamphlet swept the colonies in months, turning "independence" from the radical claim of a few into the common sense of the ordinary people. Washington even had it read to his troops to raise morale.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.