The crucible: a play in four acts

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

Envy is a deadly sin, Mary

Do that which is good, and no harm shall come to thee.”

You will never believe, I hope, that Rebecca trafficked with the Devil.
HALE: Woman, it is possible

I never said my wife were a witch, Mr. Hale; I only said she were reading books!

GILES: I never said my wife were a witch, Mr. Hale; I only said she were reading books!

The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon—such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas.

Our difficulty in believing the—for want of a better word—political inspiration of the Devil is due in great part to the fact that he is called up and damned not only by our social antagonists but by our own side, whatever it may be

Our opposites are always robed in sexual sin, and it is from this unconscious conviction that demonology gains both its attractive sensuality and its capacity to infuriate and frighten.

It is as impossible for most men to conceive of a morality without sin as of an earth without “sky.” S