The Woman had once been supreme; in France she still seemed potent, not merely as a sentiment but as a force; why was she unknown ...in America? for evidently America was ashamed of her, and she was ashamed of herself, otherwise they would not have strewn fig-leaves so profusely all over her. When she was a true force, she was ignorant of fig-leaves, but the monthly-magazine-made American female had not a feature that would have been recognized by Adam. The trait was notorious, and often humorous, but anyone brought up among Puritans knew that sex was sin. In any previous age, sex was strength.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Puritans, to keep the remembrance of their unity one with another, and of their peaceful compact with the Indians, named their... forest settlement CONCORD.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The truth is, as every one knows, that the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. ...No virtuous man--that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense--has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[17th-century] Puritans were the first modern parents. Like many of us, they looked on their treatment of children as a test of th...eir own self-control. Their goal was not to simply to ensure the child's duty to the family, but to help him or her make personal, individual commitments. They were the first authors to state that children must obey God rather than parents, in case of a clear conflict.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Without a sense of the shame or guilt of his or her action, the child will only be hardened in rebellion by physical punishment. S...hame (and praise) help the child to internalize the parent's judgment. It impresses upon the child that the parent is not only more powerful but also right. Like the Puritans, Locke (in 1690), wanted the child to adopt the parent's moral position, rather than simply bow to superior strength or social pressure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He was one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for the most part, see nothing at all,--the Puritans. It would be in v...ain to kill him. He died lately in the time of Cromwell, but he reappeared here. Why should he not? Some of the Puritan stock are said to have come over and settled in New England. They were a class that did something else than celebrate their forefathers' day, and eat parched corn in remembrance of that time. They were neither Democrats nor Republicans, but men of simple habits, straightforward, prayerful; not thinking much of rulers who did not fear God, not making many compromises, nor seeking after available candidates.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One wonders that the tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out to see what the trees mean by their high colors and exuberanc...e of spirits, fearing that some mischief is brewing. I do not see what the Puritans did at this season, when the maples blaze out in scarlet. They certainly could not have worshiped in groves then. Perhaps that is what they built meeting-houses and fenced them round with horse-sheds for.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If Columbus was the first to discover the islands, Americus Vespucius and Cabot, and the Puritans, and we their descendants, have ...discovered only the shores of America.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The [nineteenth-century] young men who were Puritans in politics were anti-Puritans in literature. They were willing to die for th...e independence of Poland or the Manchester Fenians; and they relaxed their tension by voluptuous reading in Swinburne.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »