“To the Puritan all things are impure, as somebody says.”

— D.H. Lawrence

Sketches of Etruscan Places (1932)

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D.H. Lawrence 131

English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary crit… 1885–1930

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“At the bottom of Puritanism one finds envy of the fellow who is having a better time in the world, and hence hatred of him. At the bottom of democracy one finds the same thing. This is why all Puritans are democrats and all democrats are Puritans.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

A Little Book in C Major, New York, NY, John Lane Company (1916) p. 76
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“Europeans used to say Americans were puritanical. Then they discovered that we were not puritans. So now they say that we are obsessed with sex.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

As quoted in "Lady with a Switchblade" in LIFE magazine (20 September 1963) http://books.google.com/books?id=e1IEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Europeans+used+to+say+Americans+were+puritanical+Then+they+discovered+that+we+were+not+puritans+So+now+they+say+that+we+are+obsessed+with+sex%22&pg=PA62#v=onepage

“It would annoy me less that we’re heading into a new puritanical era if the puritanism concerned itself about things that matter.”

Poul Anderson book The Boat of a Million Years

Source: The Boat of a Million Years (1989), Chapter 18 “Judgment Day”, Section 3 (p. 330)

“It was a common saying among the Puritans, "Brown bread and the Gospel is good fare."”

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales

Isaiah 30.
Commentaries

“A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

As quoted in an interview in The New York Times (21 November 1930)

“Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks?”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Source: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. VI.

“Read – and be curious. And if somebody says to you: 'Things are this way. You can't change it' - don't believe a word.”

Cornelia Funke (1958) author

“Like all neo-puritans you have a mind like an open drain.”

John Brunner book The Jagged Orbit

Source: The Jagged Orbit (1969), Chapter 44, “A Firm Decision to Go Into the Wagon-Fixing Business in a Big Way” (p. 132)

“If I fear anything, I fear the atmosphere of the war, the power which it gives to all the things I hate — the newspapers, the politicians, the puritans, the scoutmasters, the middle-aged merciless spinsters.”

Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) English novelist

Diary entry, 20 January 1940, from The Diaries of Christopher Isherwood, vol I: 1939 - 1960, edited by Katherine Bucknell, p. 84<!-- >
Context: If I fear anything, I fear the atmosphere of the war, the power which it gives to all the things I hate — the newspapers, the politicians, the puritans, the scoutmasters, the middle-aged merciless spinsters. I fear the way I might behave, if I were exposed to this atmosphere. I shrink from the duty of opposition. I am afraid I should be reduced to a chattering enraged monkey, screaming back hate at their hate.

“Somebody's girlfriend," she said. "Somebody's sister, somebody's daughter. All these things I never knew I was before, and I still don't really know what I am.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“To the Puritan all things are impure, as somebody says.”

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D.H. Lawrence 131

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