Protestant Ethic Quotes

There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican-Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English.

Why was it, if you were a wealthy European industrialist in the 19th century, you would also most likely be a Protestant. There had been a shift of economic power from Catholic Countries like Italy and Spain towards Protestant countries like England and Germany? It seemed as if there were some kind of connection between the content of your faith—the form of your worship and your economic fortunes… What was it about Protestantism that made people not only work harder but save and accumulate capital?

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing

All travelers agree that Protestant are both richer and more populous than Catholic countries; and the reason is, because the habits of the former are more conducive to production.

Puritanism carried the ethos of the rational organization of capital and labor. It took over from the Jewish ethic only what was adapted to this purpose.

… the truth in the power of the wish

What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.

In common with all Protestant or Jewish cultures, America was developed on the idea that your word is your bond. Otherwise, the frontier could never have been opened, 'cause it was lawless. A man's word had to mean something.

Religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.

Happiness does not fall out of the blue and dreams will not come true by themselves. We need to be down-to-earth and work hard. We should uphold the idea that working hard is the most honorable, noblest, greatest and most beautiful virtue.

One good quality in European peoples is their willingness to take risks. This is the chief source of their success …. Another of their good qualities is perseverance and … hard work.

I learned really early on that I had to treat it as if it were a real job. This might be my middle class background - the Irish work ethic, which isn't quite the same as the Protestant work ethic - but still, it's, 'Get a job and show up every day. Be there. And don't complain. Who do you think you are: you're nobody special; go to work.'

No man has a right to be idle. Where is it that in such a world as this, that health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?

We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad.

Poverty violates core American values. It challenges the American dream’s promise of prosperity for anyone who works hard, a faith central to the national ethic.

The irony is that in our decades, the combination of rationalism, asceticism, and individualism (the so-called Protestant Ethic) has produced precisely the system of boondoggling, luxury-consumption, and status.

Nobody else in the world would look at writing as craftsmanship - it's totally this Protestant hardworking ethic. You go into this kind of infinite space of imagination and you fence yourself in with all kinds of laws.

When you think about Puritanism, you must begin by getting rid of the slang term 'Puritanism' as applied to Victorian religious hypocrisy. This does not apply to seventeenth-century Puritanism.

By a kind of happy pre-established harmony, such as a later age discovered between the needs of society and the self-interest of the individual, success in business is in itself almost a sign of spiritual grace, for it is a proof that a man has laboured faithfully in his vocation.