On the American Revolution, he wrote: “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.”
George Washington
Thomas Paine
Nathan Hale
John Adams
Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Paine. In the first of his Crises papers, Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.” Written as Paine took part in the Revolutionary Army’s retreat across New Jersey in 1776, the pamphlet was ordered read to the troops in the Revolutionary encampments. Paine, born in England on January 29, 1737, went on to write The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason. He lived his final years in poverty and obscurity, and died June 8, 1809.