Puritan ethic
Stern self-denial doctrine
The Puritan ethic is the belief that hard work, self-discipline, and frugality are moral duties—that success through diligent labor reflects virtue.
The concept derives from Calvinist Protestant values emphasizing industry over idleness: The company's relentless pace reflects an old Puritan ethic.
Often interchangeable with Protestant ethic or work ethic, though Puritan ethic carries stronger connotations of austere self-denial and suspicion of pleasure.
- PilgrimsPlymouth's founding English colonists
- asceticismSevere self-denial practice
- CalvinismPredestinarian Protestant theology
- diligenceCareful, persistent effort
- industriousnessHabitual hard work
temperance · moral discipline · capitalism · hard work · vocation · self-denial · American exceptionalism · perseverance · idle hands · moral rectitude · thrift · Reformation · Mayflower Compact · stewardship · individualism · humility · meritocracy · religious freedom
- colonial faithPilgrims, Calvinism, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, New England
Puritan ethichedonism
Pursuit of gratification
Epicureanism · pleasure principle · sybaritism · epicureanism · carpe diem
Puritan ethicidleness
State of doing nothing
sloth · lotus-eating · laziness · la dolce vita · work-life balance
Puritan ethicdecadence
Moral decline through excess
libertinism · debauchery · dissipation · profligacy · self-indulgence
Puritan, puritan, Puritans, puritanical, puritanism, Puritanism, pure, purity, purify