“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.”

—  R. H. Tawney

Part IV, Ch. 3
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)

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R. H. Tawney 34
English philosopher 1880–1962

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