SUPERSTITION QUOTES II
quotations about superstition
Aaah ... when two Neptunes appear in the sky it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In doing practically only the things which He testifies He cares nothing about, superstition neglects those which He has ordained and said are pleasing to Him or even openly rejects them. Therefore those who (in order to worship God) establish religions which have their source in their own minds, only worship their own dreams.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
The master of superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Superstition", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
I wish to substitute humanity for superstition, the love of our fellow men, for the fear of God.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Six Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll on Six Sermons by the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
The funny thing about superstitions is that the nonsense ones are perfectly reasonable if they're YOUR superstitions, it's everybody else's that are ridiculous.
FLAVIA BERTOLINI
"Don't do that, it's bad luck! There are a lot of superstitions out there, and some of them are really quite peculiar", Mirror, April 30, 2017
Hence, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence!
Thy chain of adamant can bind
That little world, the human mind,
And sink its noblest powers to impotence.
SAMUEL RODGERS
Ode to Superstition
To think that now the 19th century is so far advanced, education and knowledge in the power of being acquired by every English-speaking race, and most foreign, superstition still exists, not only amongst the humbler and partially educated, but also amongst the upper classes, the learned, scientific and most erudite minds--is almost unaccountable to ordinary thinking people. The Roman Catholic believes in holy water, the Ritualist in the consecration of churches and burial grounds; the devout but humble Presbyterian in the necessity of a person who has viewed a corpse touching the same before leaving; and thousands of all creeds and classes in the possession of a child's caul as a charm against being drowned, if not other dangers, &c. & c. Now, the only consecration any church or other building can have is when persons assemble in it to worship God, not with outward signs or ceremonies, but with the heart; not according to the letter of the ritual, but in spirit and in truth. Superstition, then, is a clear proof of a weak mind and diluted Christianity. Do then, ye victims to superstition, forebodings of evil, and ye blind followers of the blind, think of Cromwell's grand speech to his army of Roundheads: "Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry." And think of the heroic and simple faith of the Pilgrim Fathers who launched out in their primitively-constructed vessel on the waves of the storm-tossed Atlantic to seek in an unknown world on the other side the freedom to worship that great unknown Being in whom they placed childlike and implicit faith, and at early dawn on the dreary ocean, and at the solemn vesper hour, made more solemn by their lone isolated position on the dreary desert of waters that surrounded them, they joined in one cry, one solemn resolve, which sounded clear above the roaring of the tempestuous waves, and said: Faith of our fathers, simple faith, we will be true to thee.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Superstition", Short Essays
Primitive superstition lies just below the surface of even the most tough-minded individuals, and it is precisely those who most fight against it who are the first to succumb to its suggestive effects.
CARL JUNG
Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
The most infallible mark of ignorance is superstition.
STANISLAUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Aren't we supposed to free ourselves from lies and superstition? Isn't that the obligation of intelligent beings?
ANNE RICE
The Wolves of Midwinter
The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Blood Meridian
Such people as can be prevailed upon to believe that their reason is depraved, may easily be led by the nose, and duped into superstition at the pleasure of those in whom they confide, and there remain from generation to generation: for when they throw by the law of reason the only one which God gave them to direct them in their speculations and duty, they are exposed to ignorant or insidious teachers, and also to their own irregular passions, and to the folly and enthusiasm of those about them, which nothing but reason can prevent or restrain.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing; for, as it addeth deformity to an ape, to be so like a man, so the similitude of superstition to religion, makes it the more deformed. And as wholesome meat corrupteth to little worms, so good forms and orders corrupt, into a number of petty observances.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Superstition", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
The beginning of superstition was the subtlety of Satan; the beginning of true religion, the service of God.
GENNADIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
might be superstition but some kind of somethin'
goin' on down there
it might be superstition but some kind of somethin'
goin' on down there
it's an old time tradition when they play their
drums at night in Congo Square
SONNY LANDRETH
"Congo Square Lyrics"
Once people begin to understand the right relation of things and the real cause of phenomenon, they cease to be superstitious.
BARSHA NAG BHOWMICK
"Black cat, bad luck: Really how superstitious are you?", Times of India, May 22, 2017
Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.
CARL SAGAN
Cosmos
Religion is not removed by removing superstition.
CICERO
De Divinatione
Christianity was an epidemic rather than a religion. It appealed to fear, hysteria and ignorance. It spread across the Western world, not because it was true, but because humans are gullible and superstitious.
COLIN WILSON
The Occult: A History
Superstition originates among ordinary people in the early and all too zealous instruction they receive in religion: they hear of mysteries, miracles, deeds of the Devil, and consider it very probable that things of this sort could occur in everything anywhere.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books