Men they were who could not bend;
Blest Pilgrims, surely, as they took for guide
A will by sovereign Conscience sanctified.
From Rite and Ordinance abused they fled
To Wilds where both were utterly unknown.
—Wordsworth, "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," Part III. Aspects of Christianity in America, I. The Pilgrim Fathers.
In romance of circumstance and the charm of personal heroism the story of the Pilgrim Fathers is pre-eminent.
—J. A. Doyle's "English in America."
The coming hither of the Pilgrim three centuries ago ... shaped the destinies of this Continent, and therefore profoundly affected the destiny of the whole world.
—President Roosevelt, at the laying of the corner-stone of the Pilgrim Memorial Monument at Provincetown, Massachusetts, August 20th, 1907.