Pete Buttigieg Quotes

What cultural DNA remains from those first Puritan forays onto American soil may be our love of a fresh start.

You know the puritan ethic that started out four centuries ago in this country, needless to say - at least for the moment - a thing of the past - from what I can tell.

I think we're very uptight in America. You have to remember that we're descended from Puritans. Whether or not the country is now composed of immigrants, our culture as American really begins with the landing of the Pilgrims and a puritanical view of things.

Puritanism was a youthful, vigorous movement.

The preoccupation of American historical and literary scholars with the New England Puritans must seem to outsiders like an obsession.

The Puritans left behind so full a record of what they thought and did that scholars cannot resist the temptation to make the most of it.

If there ever was a militant religion, it was that of early New England.

Cotton Mather is one of those classic figures of American history who can't be left out. One has to explain him or explain him away, redeem him or denounce him.

Calvin was virtually the founder of America.

When you think about Puritanism, you must begin by getting rid of the slang term 'Puritanism' as applied to Victorian religious hypocrisy. This does not apply to seventeenth-century Puritanism.

When I say that Latinos share conservative values, when Ronald Reagan said that, we mean the love of family, the love of country, a commitment to personal responsibility, to hard work.

It’s true the Puritans themselves fled intolerance, but once they established themselves in America, they set up their own brutally intolerant regime.

Puritan standards have become the public standards of America, and you will find more of New England in Colorado Springs, Boulder, or Greeley than in most towns of Massachusetts.

Europeans want America to be like Europe. But America will never be like Europe. She is the daughter of Europe but she left home when 18 years old and never came back.

Protestant Ascendency

Massachusetts we look at as the home of liberal democracy. In the 16th century, it was the home of repressive theology.

America itself has been through so many challenges since that fateful day back in 1776. Our culture has been a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-go-to-work culture.

Apart from the intrinsic interest of the complex system of beliefs the Puritans carried with them, their lives give a clue to what it meant at the beginning to be American. And the level of scholarship dealing with them has reached a point where it can address the human condition itself.

The Puritans came to America to worship in their way and to force everybody else to do the same thing.

Would America have been America without her Negro people?

The reason America is a special nation is because it was founded by people who were first on their knees before they were on their feet. We are a nation rooted in our faith.

Frankly, Django is an American story that needs to be told, when you think of slavery existing in this country for 245 years. In slave narratives there were all types of tales and drama and heroism and pain and love that happened during that time. That's rich material for drama! Everyone complains that there are no new stories left to tell. Not true, there are a whole bunch of them, and they're all American with a capital A.

To me, Calvinism means the placing of the eternal God at the head of all things.

Seriousness is not Calvinistic, it's not a renunciation, it's the very opposite of that.

It [Calvinism] established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king.