Puritanism Quotes

Anti-Catholicism has always been the pornography of the Puritan.

If a man really believes that God once upheld slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion's sake; that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will be bad. It always has been bad. This belief built the dungeons of the Inquisition. This belief made the Puritan murder the Quaker.

When we learned about Salem at school, the whole thing was confusing. Because the idea of the witch hunt is used as a symbol to describe people searching for something that's basically untrue, it cemented in my mind as a kid that witches weren't real.

We [Puritans] have been reputed a Colony of wild Opinionists, swarmed into a remote wilderness to find elbow-room for our fanatic Doctrines and practices.

… to gag us from speaking truth, and discovering the tyrannies of bad men.

Cotton Mather is one of those classic figures of American history who can't be left out. One has to explain him or explain him away, redeem him or denounce him.

Without really analyzing it, I grew up in Massachusetts, so the Salem witch trials were always something that I was around. The average kindergartner probably doesn't know about it, except that in Massachusetts, you do, because they'll take you on field trips to see reenactments and stuff.

Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people is in no way worn out or impaired… The people are Protestants, and of that kind which is more adverse to all implicit of mind or opinion. Worship in our Northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance.

There never was, perhaps, before seen such a body of pious people together on the face of the earth. For those who came over first, came for the sake of religion, and for that pure religion which was entirely hated by the loose and profane world. Their civil and ecclesiastical leaders were exemplary patterns of piety. They encouraged only the virtuous to come with, and follow them

Calvin was virtually the founder of America.

The Pilgrim Fathers believed in freedom of thought for themselves and for all other people who believed exactly as they did.

Massachusetts we look at as the home of liberal democracy. In the 16th century, it was the home of repressive theology.

The puritanical potentialities of science have never been forecast. If it evolves a body of organized rites, and is established as a religion, hierarchically organized, things more than anything else will be done in the name of 'decency.' The coarse fumes of tobacco and liquors, the consequent tainting of the breath and staining of white fingers and teeth, which is so offensive to many women, will be the first things attended to.

Basically, I was always disappointed that the witches weren't real when we learned about the Salem witch trials.

The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.

Anne Hutchinson’s preaching to both women and men in her home is a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God, nor fitting for her sex.

Carolina minds had been poisoned with the principles which were imbibed and propagated from Boston and Rhode Island.

I was raised in a typical Puritan Midwestern Methodist home and there was a lot of hurt and hypocrisy in those times. And I think that whatever part Playboy played and that I managed to play in terms of the sexual revolution came out of what I saw in the negative part of that life and tried to change things in some positive way so that people could choose alternate personal ways of living their lives.

The Puritan attack on Christmas was only a minor expression of religious and social ideas which were revolutionary in their impact on the national life in general. Christmas was criticized because of its “Popish” antecedents and because as the chief national holiday it was especially associated with drinking, dancing, play acting, gambling, and other evils.

I think everyone should read Governor William Bradford's diary.

I was interested in what was really going on in Salem at that time, and I resolved to investigate this seemingly unorthodox treatment of the people and the period.

My wife is a real Puritan. She thinks licking the stamp on the envelope of a Valentine is foreplay.

Protestant Ascendency

Even in Puritan New England, seventy years ago, female slaves, in ministers' and magistrates' families, bore children, black or yellow, without marriage. No one inquired who their fathers were, and nothing more was thought of it than of the breeding of sheep or swine. We had the facts from those who well remembered them.

Puritanism was a youthful, vigorous movement.