"No praying, it spoils business"
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A line like "No praying, it spoils business" lands because it treats piety as a market disturbance, not a moral good. Otway, writing for a Restoration stage that loved moral disorder served with a wink, compresses an entire social critique into six words: religion is welcome only until it interrupts the cashflow, the plot, the pleasure. The bluntness is the joke and the indictment. Prayer, supposedly the highest human act, is reduced to bad timing.
The intent is less atheistic than tactical. A dramatist’s world is full of schemers, soldiers, lovers, and merchants - people for whom devotion is either a prop or a threat. The speaker (almost certainly a figure with skin in the game) isn’t arguing theology; he’s enforcing priorities. That’s what gives the line its sharp subtext: the real faith here is faith in transaction. When prayer "spoils" business, it implies business is already morally precarious, dependent on speed, secrecy, and uninterrupted appetite. Reflection would introduce friction - conscience, hesitation, a reminder of judgment.
In Restoration England, public religion was also tangled up with power after civil war, regicide, and the return of the monarchy. Prayer wasn’t just private comfort; it could signal allegiance, hypocrisy, or dissent. Otway exploits that tension. The line works because it’s a miniature portrait of a culture that can stage sanctity while privately fearing what sanctity might actually require. It’s not anti-prayer so much as anti-interruption - and that’s the most damning punchline.
The intent is less atheistic than tactical. A dramatist’s world is full of schemers, soldiers, lovers, and merchants - people for whom devotion is either a prop or a threat. The speaker (almost certainly a figure with skin in the game) isn’t arguing theology; he’s enforcing priorities. That’s what gives the line its sharp subtext: the real faith here is faith in transaction. When prayer "spoils" business, it implies business is already morally precarious, dependent on speed, secrecy, and uninterrupted appetite. Reflection would introduce friction - conscience, hesitation, a reminder of judgment.
In Restoration England, public religion was also tangled up with power after civil war, regicide, and the return of the monarchy. Prayer wasn’t just private comfort; it could signal allegiance, hypocrisy, or dissent. Otway exploits that tension. The line works because it’s a miniature portrait of a culture that can stage sanctity while privately fearing what sanctity might actually require. It’s not anti-prayer so much as anti-interruption - and that’s the most damning punchline.
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| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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