Important Quotes with Page Numbers for The Crucible by Arthur Miller

This list of important quotations from “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller will help you work with the essay topics and thesis statements above by allowing you to support your claims. All of the important quotes from “Crucible” listed here correspond, at least in some way, to the paper topics above and by themselves can give you great ideas for an essay by offering quotes and explanations about other themes, symbols, imagery, and motifs than those already mentioned and explained. Aside from the thesis statements above, these important quotes from “The Crucible” alone can act as essay questions or study questions as they are all relevant to the text in an important way. All quotes contain page numbers as well. Look at the bottom of the page to identify which edition of Arthur Miller’s “Crucible” they are referring to.

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“This predilection for minding other people’s business was time-honored among the people of Salem, and it undoubtedly created many of the suspicions which were to feed the coming madness.” (4)

“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.” (5)

“The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom.” (6)

“The witch-hunt was not, however, a mere repression. It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to publicly express his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims.” (7)

“These people had no ritual for the washing away of sins. It is another trait we inherited from them, and it has helped to discipline us as well as to breed hypocrisy among us.” (19)

“A wide opinion’s running in the parish that the Devil may be among us, and I would satisfy them that they are wrong.” (26)

“This will all set us to arguin’ again in the society, and we thought to have peace this year.” (26)

“There is either obedience or the church will burn like Hell is burning!” (30)

“Do you take it upon yourself to determine what this court shall believe and what it shall set aside?” (79)

“Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own. 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.” (132)