Quotes to Help
Below is a selection of quotes from The Crucible which relate to all of the topics that we have discussed.
“Parris: Thomas, Thomas, I pray you, leap not to witchcraft. I know that you- you least of all, Thomas, would ever wish so disastrous a charge laid upon me. We cannot leap to witchcraft. They will howl me out of Salem for such corruption in my house.”
“Mary Warren: What we’ll do? The village is out! I just come from the farm; the whole country’s talkin’ witchcraft! They’ll be callin’ us witches, Abby!”
“Rebecca, sitting: I think she’ll wake in time. Pray calm yourselves. I have eleven children, and I am twenty-six times a grandma…”
“Tituba: You beg me to conjure! She beg me make charm-
Abigail: Don’t lie! To Hale: She comes to me while I sleep; she’s always making me dream corruptions!”
“Giles: I never said my wife were a witch, Mr. Hale; I only said she were reading books!”
“Giles, shaken: John- tell me, are we lost?
Proctor: Go home now Giles. We’ll speak on it tomorrow.”
“Hathorne’s voice: Now, Martha Corey, there is abundant evidence in our hands to show that you have given yourself to the reading of fortunes. Do you deny it?
“Hale: Excellency, I have signed seventy-two death warrants; I am minister of the Lord, and I dare not take a life without there be proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it.”
“Mary Warren, pointing at Proctor: You’re the Devil’s man!”
“Hale: I denounce these proceedings, I quit this court! He slams the door to the outside behind him.”
“Salem had been established hardly forty years before. To the European world the whole province was a barbaric frontier inhabited by a sect of fanatics who, nevertheless, were shipping out products of slowly increasing quantity and value.”
“The edge of the wilderness was close by. The American continent stretched endlessly west, and it was full of mystery for them. It stood dark and threatening, over their shoulders night and day, for out of it Indian tribes marauded from time to time, and Reverend Parris had parishioners who had lost relatives to these heathen.”
“The proof of their beliefs value to them may be taken from the opposite character of the first Jamestown settlement, farther south in Virginia. The Englishmen who landed there were motivated mainly by a hunt for profit. They had thought to pick off the wealth of the new country and then return rich to England.”
“It was however, an autocracy by consent, for they were united from top to bottom by a commonly held ideology whose perpetuation was the reason and justification for all their sufferings. Sp their self-denial, their purposefulness, their suspicion of all vain pursuits, their hard-handed justice were altogether perfect instruments for the conquest of this space so antagonistic to man.”
“The Salem tragedy, which is about to begin in these pages, developed from a paradox. It is a paradox in whose grip we still live, and there is no prospect yet that we will discover is resolution. Simply, it was this: for good purposes, even high purposes, the people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies.”
“ABIGAIL: Uncle, the rumour of witchcraft is all about; I think you’d best go down and deny it yourself. The parlor’s packed with people, sir. I’ll sit with her.
PARRIS ,pressed, turns on her: And what shall I say to them? that my daughter and my niece I discovered dancing like heathen in the forest?
ABIGAIL: Uncle, we did dance; let you tell them I confessed it -- and I’ll be whipped if I must be. But they’re speakin’ of witchcraft. Betty’s not witched.”
“PARRIS: Abigail, if you know something that may help the doctor, for God’s sake tell it to me. She is silent. I saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when I came on to you. Why was she doing that? And then I heard a screeching and gibberish coming from her mouth. She were swaying like a dub beast over that fire!”
“PARRIS: Goody Ann, it is a formidable sin to conjure up the dead!”
“PROCTOR: Is is the Devil’s fault that man cannot say you good morning without you clap him for defamation?”
“Like Reverend Hale and the others on this stage, we conceive the Devil as a necessary part of a respectable view of cosmology. Ours is a divided empire in which certain ideas and emotions and actions are of God, and their opposites are of Lucifer.”
"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'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!"
“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!”
“Here is all the invisible world, caught, defined, and calculated. In these books the Devil stands stripped of all his brute disguises. Here are all your familiar spirits-your incubi and succubi; your witches that go by land, by air, and by sea; your wizards of the night and of the day. Have no fear now-we shall find him out and I mean to crush him utterly if he has shown his face!”
“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.”
"Aye we’ll discuss it...Now mark me, if the Devil is in her you will witness some frightful wonders in this room so please keep your wits about you.”
"..And I bid you all do likewise. 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? Therefore who may possibly be witness to it. The witch and the victim. None other."
“Then who will judge me?...God in heaven, what is John Proctor, what is John Proctor?.. I think it is honest, I think so;I am no saint…:Let Rebecca go like a saint for me it is fraud.”
“Proctor, I cannot think God can be provoked so grandly by such a petty cause. The jails are packed--our greatest judges sit in Salem now--and hangin’s promised. Man, we must look to be proportionate. Were there some murder done, perhaps, never brought to light? Abomination? Some secret blasphemy that stinks to Heaven."
“I judge nothing… I tell you straight mister, I have seen marvels in this court. I have seen people choked before my eyes by spirits; I have seen them stuck pins and slashed by daggers. I have until this moment not the slightest reason to suspect the children may be deceiving me. Do you understand my meaning?
“I want to open myself! I want the light of God. I want the sweet love of Jesus. I danced for the Devil; I saw him… I go back to Jesus; I kissed his hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with Devil. I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!”
“A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything… I beg you, sir, I beg you-see her what she is…. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance, and you must see it.”
“A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face!... For them that quail to bring the 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!”
“There is either obedience or the church will burn like Hell is burning!”
“I judge nothing…. I tell you straight, Mister- I have seen marvels in this court. I have seen people choked before my eyes by spirits; I have seen them stuck by pins and slashed by daggers. I have until this moment not the slightest reason to suspect that the children may be deceiving me.”
“I have been hurt , Mr. Danforth; I have seen my blood runnin’ out! I have been near to murdered every day because I done my duty pointing out the Devil’s people- and this is my reward? To be mistrusted denied, questione like a-”
“Man, remember, until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven."
“Now hear me, and beguile yourself no more. I will not receive an single plea for pardon or postponement. Them that will not confess will hang…. While I speak God’s law, I will not crack its voice with whimpering.”
“I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another. I have no tongue for it”
“Abigail: Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be—
Proctor: You'll speak nothin' of Elizabeth!
Abigail: She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a—
Proctor : Do you look for whippin'?”
"Danforth: “You are in all respects a Gospel Christian?”
Proctor: “I am sir”
Danforth: “Such a Christian that will not come to church but once in a month!”
"Francis: We have proof of it, sir. They are all deceiving you.
Danforth is shocked, but studying Francis.
Hathorne: This is contempt, sir, contempt!
Danforth: Peace, Judge Hathorne. Do you know who I am, Mr. Nurse?
Francis: I surely do, sir, and I think you must be a wise judge to be what you are."
"Cheever: Why, Abigail Williams charge her.
Proctor: On what proof, what proof?
Cheever, looking about the room: Mr. Proctor, I have little time. The court bid me search your house, but I like not to search a house. So will you hand me any poppets that your wife may keep here?
Proctor: Poppets?
Elizabeth: I never kept no poppets, not since I were a girl.
Cheever, embarrassed, glancing toward the mantel where sits Mary Warren’s poppet: I spy a poppet, Goody Proctor.
Elizabeth: Oh! Going for it: Why, this is Mary’s."
"Proctor: I never knew until tonight that the world is gone daft with this nonsense."
"Mary Warren: I made a gift for you today, Goody Proctor. I had to sit long hours in a chair, and passed the time with sewing.
Elizabeth, perplexed, looking at the doll: Why, thank you, it’s a fair poppet."
"Hathorne: It is no lie, you cannot speak of lies.
Hale: It is a lie! They are innocent!
Danforth: I’ll hear no more of that!"
"Proctor: I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another. Crying out, with hatred: I have no tongue for it."
"Danforth: Did you ever see her sister, Mary Easty, with the Devil?
Proctor: No, I did not.
Danforth, his eyes narrow on Proctor: Did you ever see Martha Corey with the Devil?
Proctor: I did not.
Danforth, realizing, slowly putting the sheet down: Did you ever see anyone with the Devil?
Proctor: I did not."
"Proctor: Then it is proved. Why must I say it?"
"Proctor: You’re coming to the court with me, Mary. You will tell it in the court.
Mary Warren: I cannot charge murder on Abigail.
Proctor, moving menacingly toward her: You will tell the court how that poppet come here and who stuck the needle in.
Mary Warren: She’ll kill me for sayin’ that! Proctor continues toward her. Abby’ll charge lechery on you, Mr. Proctor!"
(Miller)
