PROCTOR, his mind wild, breathless: I say – I say – God is dead!
Is that as far as your mind can see, the business? What is that, the world – the business? What the hell do you mean, you did it for me? Don’t you have a country? Don’t you live in the world? What the hell are you? You’re not even an animal, no animal kills his own, what are you? What must I do to you? I ought to tear the tongue out of your mouth, what must I do?
Realizing its fundamental importance in understanding spectral lines, in atomic physics and in the theory of how light and electrons interact, quantum electrodynamics, Pauli and Heisenberg were determined to derive it from quantum theory rather than introducing it from the start. They believed that if they could find a version of quantum electrodynamics capable of producing the fine structure constant, it would not contain the infinities that marred their theories.
It was in my twenties that I felt old, that was when time was an abrasive wheel grinding me down. But it was not so much death I feared as insignificance.
PARRIS: I want a mark of confidence, is all! I am your third preacher in seven years. I do not wish to be put out like the cat whenever some majority feels the whim.
What ideology, I wondered, was not based on a principled denial of the facts?
They believed, in short, that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief, and it has helped and hurt us.
Gotta break your neck to see a star in this yard.
So, now I’ve become such a big schoolmaster that my name is even mentioned in the newspapers. But I have remained a simple fellow who asks nothing of the world – only my youth is gone, the enchanting youth that walks forever on air.
Forget now. Live.
If I strike oil I’ll send you a check. Meantime forget I’m alive.
Then what is this if it isn’t telling me? Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were.
My dreams of many years had simply become too damned real, and the reality was less than the dream and lacked all dedication.
He was talking as though someone we both knew had just died, and it filled me with happiness. Such is art.
God’s power is love without limit. But when a man dares reach for that... he is only reaching for the power.
I like to keep abreast of my ignorance.
I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up. Beware, Goody Proctor – cleave to no faith when faith brings blood. It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God’s most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it.
A fart on Thomas Putnam.
Every generation looks back longingly to an earlier age when things were simpler and clearer, a time before degeneration began.
The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you.
No man only needs a little salary.