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Thomas Paine (1776).

Outside the Bible and other books of religion, I think it would be difficult to find any single passage in the world’s literature that produced so wonderful a result as the above passage of Tom Paine’s. It was the opening paragraph of the first number of The Crisis, and was written by miserable, flaring candle-light, when Paine was a private in Washington’s ill-clad, worn-out army at Trenton. The soldiers, who were then despairing from hardship and defeat, were roused by these words to such enthusiasm that next day they rushed bravely in and won the first American victory, which turned the tide of the war of independence.

Previously to this, it was through Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, that the Americans first saw that separation was the only remedy for their grievances. Conway tells an amusing story about Common Sense and The Rights of Man. When the Bolton town crier was sent round to seize these prohibited books, he reported that he could not find any Rights of Man or Common Sense anywhere!