We were very old-fashioned. My preacher at church told me I could not go in to the movies because it would make me a 'wanton woman.'
Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that it's the sine-qua-non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, what's the point of having religion if you can't disapprove of other people?
There's an underlying puritanicalness in America that is not that different to the prudishness of Britain - it just manifests itself in different ways.
Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe
In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.
I learned from my Adventist upbringing that the biggest sins were sexual.
There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do.
Indifference to all the refinements of life--it's really shocking. Just Calvinism, that's all. Calvinism without the excuse of Calvin's theology.
Absolutist morality doesn't have to come from religion but usually does.
I've discovered I am quite a puritanical person.
I thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty.
Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.
To the Puritan all things are impure, as somebody says.
Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.
To the Puritan all things are impure.
See Ovid for an earlier variation.
I've always been extremely puritanical.
She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do.