These are the times that try men’s souls.

On this page the sentence appears as a quotation within a quotation. In April 1783, as peace arrived, Thomas Paine opened the thirteenth numbered issue of The American Crisis by announcing that “The times that tried men’s souls” were over, and the revolution “gloriously and happily accomplished”. A footnote recalls the original words and their date: the first Crisis, published in December 1776. Paine then reflects that passing from danger to peace takes some getting used to: “Even calmness has the power of stunning, when it opens too instantly upon us.”

In December 1776 the cause looked lost. Washington’s army had retreated across New Jersey, and Paine, who marched with it, wrote to rally the discouraged: “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.” According to tradition, Washington had the essay read to his troops before crossing the Delaware to attack Trenton.

Paine, born in England, had already stirred the colonies that year with Common Sense.

The American Crisis, opening sentence of The Crisis No. I (December 1776), as Paine quotes it in The Crisis No. XIII, 1776

Checked word for word in the work itself.

Read the passage in the work