“It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be Condemned.”

- Increase Mather, influential Puritan minister

“They which lie, must go to their father, the devil, into everlasting burning; they which never pray, God will pour out his wrath upon them; and … God will not forgive them unless they’re super duper sorry.”

- Cotton Mather, Harvard graduate and influential Puritan minister

“It is an awesome unhappy thing that in later years a Kind of Drink called Rum has been common among us. They that are poor, and sicked, too, can for a penny or twopence make themselves drunk.”

- Boston clergyman and President of Harvard College, Increase Mather

“Nearer the gods no mortal may approach unless they are on drugs. On drugs, it is most definitely possible.”

- Astronomer Edmond Halley, best known for “Halley’s Comet”

“If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants, and fuck, was that scary.” 
― Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke

“The people are grown very wild and loose in their morals. Ah, fuck it. Let’s pAArty.”

-Peter Stuyvesant, former Director-General of New Netherland and a major figure in New York City history

“He who stops being better stops being good in bed.” 

- Oliver Cromwell, military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy

“I think, therefore I am a seXXXy mother f*cker.”

- René Descartes on the proof of existence

“For I doe not see how we [white men] can thrive until wee get into a flock of slaves sufficient to doe all our business.”

– Puritan Emanuel Downing suggesting to John Winthrop that they trade the Indians for African slaves