“Is the accuser always holy now?”
John Proctor
The Crucible (1953)
Context: Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God's fingers? I'll tell you what's walking Salem — vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant's vengeance! I'll not give my wife to vengeance!
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Arthur Miller 147
playwright from the United States 1915–2005Related quotes
“The accusation is always that I'm 'reactionary.”
Reported in Didi Kirsten Tatlow, "A System Afraid of Its Own History", The New York Times (September 16, 2010).
“The victor will always be the judge, and the vanquished the accused.”
Source: Nuremberg Diary (1947), p. 4 (1995 edition); also quoted in Nuremberg: A Personal Record of the Trial of the Major Nazi War Criminals in 1945—46 (1978) by A. Neave, p. 74; original German, as quoted in Der Nürnberger Prozess (1958) by Joe J. Heydecker and Johannes Leeb, p. 103
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns
“Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. -Nana”
A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)
“Does not, as fire dropped upon water is immediately extinguished and cooled, so, does not, I say, a false accusation, when brought in contact with a most pure and holy life, instantly fall and become extinguished?”
Nonne, ut ignis in aquam conjectus, continuo restinguitur et refrigeratur, sic refervens falsum crimen in purissimam et castissimam vitam collatum, statim concidit et extinguitur?
Cicero, Pro Roscio Comodeo Oratio, 17; C.D. Yonge translation
"Child of Europe" (1946)
Daylight (1953)
Context: He who invokes history is always secure.
The dead will not rise to witness against him.You can accuse them of any deeds you like.
Their reply will always be silence.Their empty faces swim out of the deep dark.
You can fill them with any features desired.Proud of dominion over people long vanished,
Change the past into your own, better likeness.
The reference to Cassius is that of the character in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Listen to an mp3 sound file http://www.otr.com/murrow_mccarthy.shtml of parts of this statement.
See It Now (1954)
Context: No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind as between the internal and the external threats of communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Good night, and good luck.
Commentary on the Song of Songs, As translated by Margaret M. Mitchell in Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (2010)
“One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.”
Diary of an Unknown (1988)