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“We think ourselves possessed, or at least we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact. There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny, or to doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself, it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not much better; even in our Massachusetts, which, I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemies upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any arguments for investigation into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Volney's Recherches Nouvelles? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws... but as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed.

{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825}”
― John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson & Abigail & John Adams

“Poor dull Concord. Nothing colorful has come through here since the Redcoats.”
― Louisa May Alcott

“When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with the enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God. For, as all right-thinking people were aware, lightning is sent by God to punish impiety or some other grave sin—the virtuous are never struck by lightning. Therefore if God wants to strike any one, Benjamin Franklin [and his lightning-rod] ought not to defeat His design; indeed, to do so is helping criminals to escape. But God was equal to the occasion, if we are to believe the eminent Dr. Price, one of the leading divines of Boston. Lightning having been rendered ineffectual by the 'iron points invented by the sagacious Dr. Franklin,' Massachusetts was shaken by earthquakes, which Dr. Price perceived to be due to God's wrath at the 'iron points.' In a sermon on the subject he said, 'In Boston are more erected than elsewhere in New England, and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the mighty hand of God.' Apparently, however, Providence gave up all hope of curing Boston of its wickedness, for, though lightning-rods became more and more common, earthquakes in Massachusetts have remained rare.”
― Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish: A Hilarious Catalogue of Organized and Individual Stupidity

“At least when I get on the Boston train I have a good chance of landing in the South Station
And not in that part of the daily press which is reserved for victims of aviation.”
― Ogden Nash, Hard Lines

“And scars will lighten, they'll pale unless you keep rubbing at them...wait long enough, they'll fade.”
― C.F. Joyce, Persephone in Hell

“There was a young lady from Gloucester
Who complained that her parents both bossed her,
So she ran off to Maine.
Did her parents complain?
Not at all -- they were glad to have lost her.”
― John Ciardi, The Hopeful Trout and Other Limericks

“The chief care of the legislators [in the colonies of New England] was the maintenance of orderly conduct and good morals in the community: thus they constantly invaded the domain of conscience, and there was scarcely a sin which was no subject to magisterial censure. The reader is aware of the rigor with which these laws punished rape and adultery; intercourse between unmarried persons was likewise severely repressed. The judge was empowered to inflict either a pecuniary penalty, a whipping, or marriage, on the misdemeanants; and if the records of the old courts of New Haven may be believed, prosecutions of this kind were not unfrequent. We find a sentence, bearing date the 1st of May, 1660, inflicting a fine and reprimand on a young woman who was accused of using improper language, and of allowing herself to be kissed. The Code of 1650 abounds in preventive measures. It punishes idleness and drunkenness with severity. Innkeepers were forbidden to furnish more than certain quantities of liquor to each customer; and simple lying, whenever it may be injurious, is checked by a fine or a flogging. In other places, the legislator, entirely forgetting the great principles of religious toleration which he had himself demanded in Europe, makes attendance on divine service compulsory, and goes so far as to visit with severe punishment, and even with death, Christians who choose to worship God according to a ritual differing from his own. Sometimes, indeed, the zeal for regulation induces him to descend to the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be found in the same code which prohibits the use of tobacco. It must not be forgotten that these fantastical and vexatious laws were not imposed by authority, but that they were freely voted by all the persons interested in them, and that the manners of the community were even more austere and puritanical than the laws....

These errors are no doubt discreditable to human reason; they attest the inferiority of our nature, which is incapable of laying firm hold upon what is true and just, and is often reduced to the alternative of two excesses. In strict connection with this penal legislation, which bears such striking marks of a narrow, sectarian spirit, and of those religious passions which had been warmed by persecution and were still fermenting among the people, a body of political laws is to be found, which, though written two hundred years ago, is still in advance of the liberties of our own age.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The time must come when this coast (Cape Cod) will be a place of resort for those New-Englanders who really wish to visit the sea-side. At present it is wholly unknown to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or a circular railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the visitor is in search of, â€� if he thinks more of the wine than the brine, as I suspect some do at Newport, â€� I trust that for a long time he will be disappointed here. But this shore will never be more attractive than it is now.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod

“The important point of this report [Montague, Massachusetts; July 7, 1774] may be summed up in six resolutions: 1. We approve of the plan for a Continental Congress September 1, at Philadelphia. 2. We urge the disuse of India teas and British goods. 3. We will act for the suppression of pedlers and petty chapmen (supposably vendors of dutiable wares). 4. And work to promote American manufacturing. 5. We ought to relieve Boston. 6. We appoint the 14th day of July, a day of humiliation and prayer.”
― Edward Pearson Pressey, History of Montague; A Typical Puritan Town

“New Englanders began the Revolution not to institute reforms and changes in the order of things, but to save the institutions and customs that already had become old and venerable with them; and were new only to a few stupid Englishmen a hundred and fifty years behind the times.”
― Edward Pearson Pressey, History of Montague; A Typical Puritan Town

“I'd have been queen of all England, but Massachusetts haunted me and wouldn't let me go.”
― C.F. Joyce

“The original settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in 1630, adopted an official seal designed in England before their journey. The central image depicts a near-naked native holding a harmless, flimsy-looking bow and arrow and inscribed with the plea, "Come over and help us." Nearly three hundred years later, the official seal of the US military veterans of the "Spanish-American War" (the invasion and occupation of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines) showed a naked woman kneeling before an armed US soldier and a sailor, with a US battleship in the background. One may trace this recurrent altruistic theme into the early twenty-first century, when the United States still invades countries under the guise of rescue.”
― Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

“On January 27, 1778, the -Articles of Confederation-, recently adopted by Congress, were debated here [Montague, Massachusetts]. It was 'voted to approve of the Articles, except the first clause,' giving Congress the power to declare peace and war. This it was resolved, 'belongs to the people.”
― Edward Pearson Pressey, History of Montague; A Typical Puritan Town

“Ah, New England. An amalgam of picket fences and crumbling bricks; Ivy League schools and dropped Rs; social tolerance and the Salem witch trials, Henry David Thoreau and Stephen King, P-town rainbows and mill-town rust; Norman Rockwell and Aerosmith; lobster and Moxie; plus the simmering aromas of a million melting pot cuisines originally brought here by immigrants from everywhere else searching for new ways to live.

It’s a place where rapidly-growing progressive cities full of the ‘wicked smaaht� coexist alongside blight-inflicted Industrial Revolution landscapes full of the ‘wicked poor�. A place of forested mountains, roaring rivers, crystalline lakes, urban sprawl, and a trillion dollar stores. A place of seasonal tourism beach towns where the wild, rank scent of squishy seaweed casts its cryptic spell along the vast and spindrift-misted seacoast, while the polished yachts of the elite glisten like rare jewels on the horizon, just out of reach.

Where there are fiery autumn hues and leaves that need raking. Powder snow ski slopes and icy windshields that need scraping. Crisp daffodil mornings and mud season. Beach cottage bliss and endless miles of soul-sucking summer traffic .

Perceived together, the dissonant nuances of New England stir the imagination in compelling and chromatic whorls.”
― Eric J. Taubert

“It was an early saying here [Massachusetts] that there were 'Roots enough to plant Hampshire County and Gunns enough to defend them.”
― Edward Pearson Pressey, History of Montague; A Typical Puritan Town

“We have been gradually finding out that there is more democracy in letting a committee or representative ten to details than in making everybody's business nobody's business.”
― Edward Pearson Pressey, History of Montague; A Typical Puritan Town

“You have probably seen the order from Washington which cuts down the pay for colored troops from $13 to $10. Of course if this affects Massachusetts regiments, it will be a great piece of injustice to them, as they were enlisted on the express understanding that they were to be on precisely the same footing as all other Massachusetts troops. (excerpt from letter to MA Gov. John A. Andrew from Col. Robert G. Shaw, 2 July 1863)”
― Luis Fenollosa Emilio, History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865

“Once, just west of Framingham on the Worcester Turnpike or Route 9 in Massachusetts, I caught a ride in a truck that had worn brakes. The driver, a jolly red-nosed individual with a white beard who could have passed as Santa Claus, suggested that I might want to get out considering the situation regarding the truck’s brakes. Not wanting to turn down a ride in the middle of the night, I rode it out with the driver. Going uphill was all right, but coming down was decidedly hairy. The driver knew what he was doing and used his engine to slow himself down, but he had to depend on his emergency brake if he wanted to, or had to, stop. At one traffic light, which was on a downhill slope, he couldn’t bring his rig to a stop and just blew through the intersection, horn blowing, weaving past the cross traffic. I hung on enjoying the excitement as the driver narrated his moves, as if he was telling a story. I watched and listened to him, too caught up in this wild ride to get concerned about the danger. There were a number of downgrades where he totally lost control of our speed, but fortunately the upgrade would slow us down again. He relied on his loud air horn, which sounded even louder in the dark of night. Fun was fun and eventually we got to Worcester, where I was glad to get off in one piece. I hope that he got his load to where it was going, but I knew that the farther west on Route 9 he went, the more mountainous the terrain would become and I didn’t want any part of that. Besides, this was where I needed to get off. My next leg would take me through Sturbridge and then on to Connecticut.
.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One...."

“How to become the President of Liberia from “Liberia & Beyondâ€�
In 1973, Charles Taylor enrolled as a student at Bentley University, in Waltham, Massachusetts. A year later Taylor became chairman of the Union of Liberian Associations in America, which he founded on July 4, 1974. The mission of ULAA was meant to advance the just causes of Liberians and Liberia at home and abroad. In 1977 Taylor graduated from Bentley University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.
Returning to Liberia he supported the violent coup, led by Samuel Doe, and became the Director General of the General Services Agency most likely because of his supposed loyalty. His newly acquired elevated position put him in charge of all the purchases made for the Liberian government. Taylor couldn’t resist the urge of stealing from the till, and in May of 1983, he was found out and fired for embezzling nearly a million dollars in State funds. During this time he transferred his ill-gotten money to a private bank account in the United States. On May 21, 1984, seizing the opportunity, Taylor fled to America where he was soon apprehended and charged with embezzlement by United States Federal Marshals in Somerville, Massachusetts. Taylor was held in the Plymouth, County jail until September 15, 1985, when he escaped with two of his cohorts, by sawing through the steel bars covering a window in his cell. He precariously lowered himself down 20 feet of knotted sheets and then deftly escaped into the nearby woodlands. He most likely had accomplices, since his wife Jewel Taylor conveniently met him with a car, which they then drove to Staten Island in New York City.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Salty & Saucy Maine",

“[Senator Charles Sumner] identifies himself so completely with the universe that he is not at all certain whether he is part of the universe, or the universe is a part of him.”
― Matthew Carpenter

“New England is a dream handspun by good vibes.”
― Lakshya Bharadwaj

“Out in the distance, along the horizon of the steel-colored water, a whale-watching boat slowly made its way into the harbor. It imperceptibly moved in a straight-line past Bug Light. Nicknamed "America's Hometown," Plymouth was unique. It was a place where the old and new, the dead and the living, the ancient and the modern seamlessly coexisted. Its shores were a haven - an opportunity - for any who were willing to come and make it their home.”
― Juliette Rose Kerr, To Fill a Jar With Water

“Everyone is still relatively pleasant.”
― M. T. Anderson