The Crucible Quotes

Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!.

I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another. I have no tongue for it.

Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it.

It is rare for people to be asked the question which puts them squarely in front of themselves.

I may think of you softly from time to time. But I’ll cut off my hand before I ever reach for you again.

You are pulling down heaven and raising up a whore.

More Weight -Giles Corey-.

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!.

Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now.

Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down! - Abigail.

I cannot sleep for dreaming; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I'd find you comin' through the door.

it's the proper morning to fly into Hell.

Sex, sin, and the Devil were early linked.

Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. They say he give them but two words. "More weight," he says. And died.

The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone...

Oh,Elizabeth, your justice would freeze beer.

PROCTOR, his mind wild, breathless: I say--I say--God is dead!.

A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud – God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!.

When it is recalled that until the Christian era the underworld was never regardded as a hostile area, that all gods were useful and essentially friendly to man despite occasional lapsesl when we see the steady methodical inculcation into humanity of the idea of man's worthlesseness - until redeemed - the necessity of the Devil may become evident as a weapon, a weapon designed and used time and time again in every age to whip men into a surrender to a particular church or church state.

we are only what we always were.

Pontius Pilate! God will not let you clean your hands of this!.

If she is innocent! Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? 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!.

Political opposition... is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence.

HALE, with a tasty love of intellectual pursuit.

It is the essence of power that it accrues to those with the ability to determine the nature of the real.

Pray calm yourselves. I have eleven children, and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons, and when it come on them they will run the Devil bowlegged keeping up with their mischief. I think she'll wake when she tires of it. A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.

Perhaps because there are those who believe that authority is all of a piece and that to challenge it anywhere is to threaten it everywhere.

I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretence Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes! I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!.

In an ordinary crime, how does one defend the accused? One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature an invisible crime, is it not? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims - and they do testify, the children certainly do testify.