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Puritan Quotes

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Puritan Quotes

“Her family members and their friends and associates were, for the most part, rigorous Unitarians and well-known Transcendentalists. But for all their liberalism in religion, in terms of their public and private behavior they were still old-fashioned, upright Puritans. 'In other words, they are good people,' she said. 'Morally upright.' Their generation had abandoned the Calvinist theology in their youth, but had kept the morality. She, on the other hand, having been encouraged by her elders since her nursery days to forsake the old Puritan forms of religion, had retained none of the Puritans' moral uprightness and rigor. She was a sinner, she said. A sinner without the comfort of prayer and with no possibility of redemption.”

ReligionSinMoralityRedemptionPuritanPuritanism
Book:Cloudsplitter
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“O my Mansoul, I have lived, I have died, I live, and I will die no more for thee. I live that thou mayest not die. Because I live thou shalt live also; I reconciled thee to my Father by the blood of My cross, and being reconciled thou shalt live through me. I will pray for thee, I will fight for thee, I will yet do thee good. Nothing can hurt thee but sin; nothing can grieve Me but sin; nothing can make thee base before thy foes but sin; take heed of sin, my Mansoul.”

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Book:The Holy War
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“Amory had rather a Puritan conscience. Not that he yielded to it--later in life he almost completely slew it--but at fifteen it made him consider himself a great deal worse than other boys... unscrupulousness... the desire to influence people in almost every way, even for evil... a certain coldness and lack of affection, amounting sometimes to cruelty... a shifting sense of honor... an unholy selfishness... a puzzled, furtive interest in everything concerning sex. There was, also, a curious strain of weakness running crosswise through his make-up... a harsh phrase from the lips of an older boy (older boys usually detested him) was liable to sweep him off his poise into surly sensitiveness, or timid stupidity... he was a slave to his own moods and he felt that though he was capable of recklessness and audacity, he possessed neither courage, perseverance, nor self-respect. Vanity, tempered with self-suspicion if not self-knowledge, a sense of people as automatons to his will, a desire to "pass" as many boys as possible and get to a vague top of the world... with this background did Amory drift into adolescence.”

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Book:This Side of Paradise
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“Our need to be "greater than" or "less than" has been a defense against toxic shame. A shameful act was committed upon us. The perpetrator walked away, leaving us with the shame. We absorbed the notion that we are somehow defective. To cover for this we constructed a false self, a masked self. And it is this self that is the overachiever or the dunce, the tramp or the puritan, the powermonger or the pathetic loser.”

HealingShameAshamedSurvivorLoserTrue SelfChild Sexual AbuseAbuse SurvivorsPuritanIncestDefectiveHealing InsightsFeeling BadChild Sexual Abuse SurvivorRecovery From AbuseOverachieverCoverupToxic ShameFalse SelfPower TripHidden PainDunceDefective HumansHidden FeelingsHidden Self
Book:Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse
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“Christ often take the crown off his own head, and puts it upon the head of faith; witness such passages as these, which are frequent in Scripture; ‘Thy faith hath save thee’ Luke 7:50). ‘Thy faith hath made thee whole’ (Matt. 9:22). And no wonder that Christ crowns faith, for of all the graces, faith takes the crown off a man’s own head, and puts it upon the head of Christ.”

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Book:Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks
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“Sin is like a poison, which corrupts the blood, infects the heart, and without a sovereign Antidote, brings death. Such is the venomous nature of sin, it is deadly and damning. Sin is worse than hell, but yet God, by His mighty overruling power, makes sin in the issue turn to the good of His people. Hence the golden saying of Augustine, ‘God would never permit evil, if He could not bring good out of evil.’” - Thomas Watson”

ChristianTheologianPuritanThomas Watson
Book:All Things for Good
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“He was . . . a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan. . . . A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things. . . . Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in only one respect—he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane.”

SoulJusticeStrangeWindProtectIdealsAncientHungerPhilosopherConsistentUrgesRestlessPaganPuritanSolomon
Book:ROBERT E. HOWARD Ultimate Collection – 300+ Cult Classics, Adventure Novels, Western, Horror & Detective Stories, Historical Books (Including Poetry, Essays, Articles & Letters) - ALL in One Volume): Sword & Sorcery Fiction Including Complete Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane and Kull the Conqueror Series, as well as Weird Fiction, Fantasy Stories of the Weird West, The Cthulhu Mythos Tales and more
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“It is the night-black Massachusetts legendry which packs the really macabre "kick". Here is material for a really profound study in group-neuroticism; for certainly, no one can deny the existence of a profoundly morbid streak in the Puritan imagination.”

NightBlackImaginationExistenceStudyGroupsMaterialsProfoundDenyKicksPacksStreaksPuritanMorbidMassachusettsMacabre
Book:Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft
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“Convinced that character is all and circumstances nothing, [the Puritan] sees in the poverty of those who fall by the way, not a misfortune to be pitied and relieved, but a moral failing to be condemned, and in riches, not an object of suspicion ... but the blessing which rewards the triumph of energy and will.”

WayCharacterFallEnergyMoralPovertyFailingObjectsCircumstancesBlessingRewardsRichesConvincedTriumphMisfortunesSuspicionRelievedPuritan
Book:Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism
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“There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our Puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.”

TwoReasonAmericaPastFatherNationsReligiousViewsVisionMillionsAtheismDiversityEnlightenmentRootsConstitutionDespiteAppealsLegacyUncomfortableConformityAdoreFoundingHostileAutonomySuspiciousCoercionAllegianceOur Founding FathersPuritanHarshnessUnfriendlyContemptuous
Author:Sherwin Wine
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“The greatness of a popular character is less according to the ratio of his genius than the sympathy he shows with the prejudices and even the absurdities of his time. Fanatics do not select the cleverest but the most fanatical leaders as was evidenced in the choice of Robespierre by the French Jacobins, and in that of Cromwell by the English Puritans.”

CharacterShowsChoicesLeaderGreatnessGeniusPrejudicePopularityAbsurditySelectFanaticsRatiosPuritanCromwell
Book:Memoirs of Celebrated Characters
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“Christianity ... has produced the iniquities of the Inquisition, the egotism and celibacy of the monasteries, the fury of religious wars, the ferocity of the Hussite, of the Catholic, of the Puritan, of the Spaniard, of the Irish Orangeman and of the Irish Papist; it has divided families, alienated friends, lighted the torch of civil war, and borne the virgin and the greybeard to the burning pile, broken delicate limbs upon the wheel and wrung the souls and bodies of innocent creatures on the rack; all this it has done, and done in the name of God.”

WarSoulDoneBodyReligionNamesReligiousChristianityBrokenCreaturesCatholicInnocentBurningCivil WarWheelsDividedDelicateVirginsLimbsFuryEgotismTorchesPuritanCelibacyRacksInquisitionIniquityMonasteriesSoul And BodyFerocitySpaniardsReligious Wars
Author:Ouida
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“Never have I enjoyed youth so thoroughly as I have in my old age. In writing Dialogues in Limbo, The Last Puritan, and now all these descriptions of the friends of my youth and the young friends of my middle age, I have drunk the pleasure of life more pure, more joyful than it ever was when mingled with all the hidden anxieties and little annoyances of actual living. Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure.”

WritingHumansLittlesAgeLastsYoungSpiritHuman BeingsPleasureMiddleYouthAdventurePureQuietAnxietyDialogueOld AgeDrunkEnjoyedDescriptionJoyfulMiddle AgesTurmoilPuritanAnnoyancePleasures Of LifeLimboYoung FriendsWriting Dialogue
Author:George Santayana
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“There is an assumption, in attaching Puritan concepts such as 'successful' and 'unsuccessful' to the awful, final act of suicide, that those who 'fail' at killing themselves not only are weak, but incompetent, incapable even of getting their dying quite right.”

SuccessfulFailingDyingConceptsWeakSuicideKillingFinalsAwfulAssumptionIncapableIncompetentPuritanUnsuccessful
Book:An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
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