Top 50 Quotes You Need for Your Essay from The Crucible

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#11: I am not empowered to trade your life for a lie….Mr. Proctor, a score of people have already testified they saw this woman with the Devil. 

• Act 4
• Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Proctor
• Techniques: Dramatic irony, alliteration, biblical allusion

#12: 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 . . ..it may well be God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride.

• Act 4
• Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Giles, Parris
• Techniques: Contrast, asyndeton, repetition 

#13: I would to God it were not so, Excellency, but these people have great weight yet in the town.

• Act 4
• Characters: Parris (Speaker), Hathorne, Danforth
• Techniques: Comparison, dramatic irony

#14: Postponement now speaks a floundering on my part; reprieve or pardon must cast doubt upon the guilt of them that died till now. While I speak God’s law, I will not crack its voice with whimpering.

• Act 4
• Characters: Hathorne (Speaker), Parris, Hale, Danforth
• Techniques: Oxymoron, metaphor, contrast

Reputation Quotes from The Crucible 

#15: I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation. Take it to heart, Mr. Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly ever mention God any more.

• Act 1
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Putnam, Parris
• Techniques: Dramatic irony, contrast

#16: My name is good in the village! I will not have it said my name is soiled! Goody Proctor is a gossiping liar!

• Act 2
• Characters: Abigail (Speaker), Parris
• Techniques: Exclamation, metonym, motif

#17: I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another…I have no tongue for it. 

• Act 4
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Hale
• Techniques: Tricolon, metaphor, motif

#18: Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life.

• Act 4
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Danforth
• Techniques: Metonym, motif, biblical symbolism

Autonomy Quotes from The Crucible

#19: 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 wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!

• Act 1
• Characters: Abigail (Speaker), Hale, Tituba 
• Techniques: Anaphora, biblical allusion, contrast 

#20: You are not undone! Let you take hold here. Wait for no one to charge you – declare it yourself. 

• Act 1
• Characters: Putnam (Speaker), Parris, Tituba, Ruth
• Techniques: Exclamation, caesura 

#21: Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now…And the wind, God’s icy wind, will blow!

• Act 2
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Mary Warren
• Techniques: Repetition, imagery, juxtaposition

#22: I’ll plead no more! I see now your spirit twists around the single error of my life, and I will never tear it free!

• Act 2
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Elizabeth
• Techniques: Biblical imagery, metaphor, hyperbole 

#23: A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you—see her what she is . . . She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance.

• Act 3
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Abigail, Danforth, Francis
• Techniques: Parataxis, juxtaposition, metonym 

#24: He knows it is insane: No, it is not the same! What others say and what I sign to is not the same!

• Act 4
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Danforth
• Techniques: Rhyme, repetition 

#25: You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor! You will not use me! It is no part of salvation that you should use me!

• Act 4
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Danforth
• Techniques: Biblical allusion, dramatic irony, juxtaposition, epistrophe 

#26: Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I’ll cut off my hand before I ever reach for you again.

• Act 4
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Abigail 
• Techniques: Contrast, juxtaposition, imagery 

#27: Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. They say he give them but two words. “More weight,” he says. And died.

• Act 4
• Characters: Elizabeth (Speaker), Proctor
• Techniques: Symbolism, parataxis, metaphor 

The Crucible Quotes about Power

#28: HALE, with a tasty love of intellectual pursuit...Here are all your familiar spirits – your incubi and succubi; your witches that go by land, by air, and by sea

• Act 1
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Rebecca, Paris
• Techniques: Mythological allusion, tricolon

#29: John – tell me, are we lost?

• Act 2 
• Characters: Giles (Speaker), Proctor
• Techniques: Metaphor, symbolism

#30: Oh, Elizabeth, your justice would freeze beer!

• Act 2
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Elizabeth
• Techniques: Hyperbole, metaphor  

#31: Do you take it upon yourself to determine what this court shall believe and what it shall set aside? . . . .This is the highest court of the supreme government of this province, do you know it?

• Act 3
• Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Giles
• Techniques: Metonym, rhetorical question 

#32: 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.

• Act 4
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Danforth, Elizabeth 
• Techniques: Simile, connotations, symbolism

Quotes about Violence from The Crucible

#33: You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!

• Act 1
• Characters: Parris (Speaker), Tituba, Abigail, Hale, Putnam
• Techniques: Declarative tone, imagery, juxtaposition, foreshadowing 

#34: What work you do! It’s strange work for a Christian girl to hang old women!

• Act 2
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Mary Warren
• Techniques: Contrast, paradox, juxtaposition, characterisation 

#35: Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers?

• Act 2
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Mary Warren
• Techniques: Tricolon, simile, motif

#36: There is fear in the country because there is a moving plot to topple Christ in the country!

• Act 3
• Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Hale, 
• Techniques: Alliteration, repetition, metaphor 

#37: You must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time—we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God’s grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it.

• Act 3
• Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Francis, Hathorne
• Techniques: Contrast, metaphor, motif

#38: Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims – and they do testify, the children certainly do testify.

• Act 3
• Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Mary Warren, Hale
• Techniques: Paradox, logical objective tone

#39: HALE, to Parris, trying to contain himself: Is every defense an attack upon the court? Can no one—?

• Act 3
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Parris
• Techniques: Rhetorical question, characterisation

#40: Excellency, it is a natural lie to tell; I beg you, stop now before another is condemned! I may shut my conscience to it no more

• Act 3
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Danforth, Proctor
• Techniques: Juxtaposition, emotive language

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

• Act 4
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Elizabeth, Danforth, Hathorne
• Techniques: Dramatic irony, biblical allusion

Good VS Evil Quotes from The Crucible

#42: I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!

• Act 1
• Characters: Abigail (Speaker), Proctor 
• Techniques: Foreshadowing, biblical reference, metaphor, consonance

#43: if Rebecca Nurse be tainted, then nothing’s left to stop the whole green world from burning

• Act 2
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Francis, Rebecca Nurse 
• Techniques: Hyperbole, metaphor

#44: Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.

• Act 2
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Giles
• Techniques: Metaphor, biblical allusion, allegory, contrast 

#45: I like it not that Mr. Parris should lay his hand upon my baby. I see no light of God in that man. I’ll not conceal it.

• Act 2
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Hale
• Techniques: Characterisation, dramatic irony, metaphor 

#46: Only this consider: the world goes mad, and it profits nothing you should lay the cause to the vengeance of a little girl.

• Act 2
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Proctor
• Techniques: Juxtaposition, connotation 

#47: You are pulling down Heaven and raising up a whore!

• Act 3
• Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Hale, Danforth 
• Techniques: Juxtaposition, metaphor, metonym, exclamation  

#48: I am a minister of the Lord, and I dare not take a life without there be a proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it.

• Act 3
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Mary, Danforth
• Techniques: Characterisation, ambiguity

#49: I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs. Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!

• Act 4
• Characters: Hale (Speaker), Elizabeth, Danforth
• Techniques: Metaphor, symbolism, metonym, connotations, dehumanisation 

#50: He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!

• Act 4
• Characters: Elizabeth (Speaker), Hale
• Techniques: Motif, dramatic irony, exclamation