““I think that deep inside yourself, in your heart, you're a Puritan. Yes, a Puritan. Or an ascetic; a sort of hermit monk. I think you want perfection - of yourself, of everyone - and because you can't find it you turn on it; and on yourself and everyone. Because you hate yourself, you want everyone to hate you. Because you're hurt, because you're proud - oh, so terribly proud, Claude - that's the heart of it. Sometimes I think you're not satisfied to be a human being at all. You want to be more than human: a force, a power, a sort of absolute beyond the rest of us. Like - like Lucifer, almost. Or like God Himself.””
![“Convinced that character is all and circumstances nothing, [the Puritan] sees in the poverty of those who fall by the way, not a misfortune to be pitied and relieved, but a moral failing to be condemned, and in riches, not an object of suspicion ... but the blessing which rewards the triumph of…” quote by R. H. Tawney](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/7ba/r-h-tawney-25650_blessing_convinced-that-character-is-all-and-circ_2586305.jpg)
