Devil Quotes - Page 17

• 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 C. Lichtenberg

  People, Miracle, Deeds

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• A condition which of declension would indicate a devil, may of growth indicate a saint.

  George MacDonald

  Growth, Saint, May

  George MacDonald (1867). “Unspoken Sermons”, p.37

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• Whosoever obeyeth the devil, casteth himself down: for the devil may suggest, compel he cannot.

  Francis Quarles

  May

  Richard Crashaw, Francis Quarles, George Gilfillan (1857). “The poetical works of Richard Crashaw and Quarles' Emblems”, p.204

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• You could take up the line that some of the gnostics took up - a line which I often thought was a very plausible one - that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Matter, Facts, World

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.119, Routledge

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• In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil to acquire magical powers. Nowadays they acquire those powers from science, and find themselves compelled to become devils. There is no hope for the world unless power can be tamed, and brought into the service, not of this or that group of fanatical tyrants, but of the whole human race, white and yellow and black, fascist and communist and democrat; for science has made it inevitable that all must live or all must die.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Yellow, White

  "Power: A New Social Analysis". Book by Bertrand Russell, Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers, 1938.

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• The idle man is the Devil's cushion, on which he taketh his free ease: who, as he is uncapable of any good, so he is fitly disposed for all evil motions.

  Joseph Hall

  Men, Evil, Ease

  Joseph Hall, Josiah Pratt (1808). “The Works: Now First Collected : with Some Account of His Life and Sufferings. Devotional works”, p.60

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• The cleverest trick of the Devil is that nobody believes in him. It. Her. Well, we have been very stupid.

  Doris Lessing

  Stupid, Believe, Tricks

  Doris May Lessing (1992). “Canopus in Argos: Archives”

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• It's past parsons to console us: No, nor no doctor fetch for me: I can die without my bolus; Two of a trade, lass, never agree! Parson and Doctor!--don't they love rarely Fighting the devil in other men's fields! Stand up yourself and match him fairly: Then see how the rascal yields!

  George Meredith

  Fighting, Past, Men

  George Meredith (1862). “Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside: With Poems and Ballads”, p.89

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• The myth about the angel who rebelled against his Lord is the most beautiful of all myths, the proudest, the most revolutionary, the most immortal of them all.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Beautiful, Art

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• There's a devil inside me which cries, "You're not the son of the Carpenter, you're the son of King David! You are not a man, you are the Son of man whom Daniel prophesied." And still more: "The Son of God! And still more: God!

  Nikos Kazantzakis

  Kings, Son, Men

  Nikos Kazantzakis, Peter Bien (1988). “The Last Temptation of Christ”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

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• Heroic figures are now obsolete,So Demigod and Devil find retreatIn minds of children - as rare beasts and men,Elsewhere extinct, persist in hill or fenFrom man protected - where each form assumesGigantic stature and intention, loomsFrom wind-moved, twilight-woven histories:For them each flower teems with mysteries.

  Osbert Sitwell

  Children, Flower, Twilight

  Osbert Sitwell (1931). “The collected satires and poems of Osbert Sitwell”

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• Natalie Lyalin is writing some of the best poems in the world. There is an evil in her gorgeous poem-hearts. She must have sold her heart to the devil to write like this—so beautiful, so funny and so strange. Her images stack and stack down the page without spilling, each line such a bombshell you'll start reading backward to the first line. These poems are like babies—they will pop out of trees.

  Zachary Schomburg

  Beautiful, Baby, Reading

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• But there is a devil of a difference between barbarians who are fit by nature to be used for anything, and civilized people who apply them selves to everything.

  Karl Marx

  Self, Differences, People

  Karl Marx (1973). “Grundrisse: Foundations of the critique of political economy”, Vintage Books USA

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• First, the desert is the country of madness. Second, it is the refuge of the devil, thrown out into the "wilderness of upper Egypt" to "wander in dry places." Thirst drives man mad, and the devil himself is mad with a kind of thirst for his own lost excellence--lost because he has immured himself in it and closed out everything else. So the man who wanders into the desert to be himself must take care that he does not go mad and become the servant of the one who dwells there in a sterile paradise of emptiness and rage.

  Thomas Merton

  Country, Men, Egypt

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.21, Macmillan

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• Ask what Infinity might produce and the only answer possible was, "Anything." Any good, any evil; any god, any devil.

  Frank Herbert

  Evil, Answers, Might

  Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.114, Penguin

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• The Devil is not afraid to sit on an altar.

  Austin O'Malley

  Not Afraid, Altars

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• If you scratch some saints you will find the devil.

  Austin O'Malley

  Saint, Scratches, Ifs

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• If the devil went about doing a tenth of what he is accused of doing he would be poor from paying the blacksmith for ox-shoes for his hooves.

  Austin O'Malley

  Shoes, Would Be, Poor

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• Each for himself is still the rule We learn it when we go to school The devil take the hindmost, O!

  Arthur Hugh Clough

  School, Stills

  Arthur Hugh Clough (1863). “Poems”, p.55

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• Isocrates was in the right to insinuate, in his elegant Greek expression, that what is got over the Devil's back is spent under his belly.

  Alain-Rene Lesage

  Expression, Greek, Belly

  "Gil Blas". Book by Alain-René Lesage. Book VIII, Chapter 9, 1735.

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• Honor thy Father and thy Mother was once said, but then someone said: What if I don't know your Father? A still voice said: Does that makes him the devil? He is still someone's Father, his name has been changed, but his story is the same. Why hate when we should Celebrate. In this world of two's, you got the Mourning Son, and the Daughter of the Night. They both equal light once you make it through the night. Now, wake the funk up!

  Bootsy Collins

  Daughter, Mother, Father

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• Considering the notion that the spiritual battlefield is infinitely greater than the physical, perhaps God is more willing to bless with a sort of divine ecstasy those who see the devil as the enemy rather than those who see other people as the enemies.

  Criss Jami

  Spiritual, People, Enemy

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.73, Criss Jami

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• I mean, the more a man was in the Devil's power, the less he would be aware of it, on the principle that a man is still fairly sober as long as he knows he's drunk.

  C. S. Lewis

  Mean, Men, Long

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.46, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Who shall say that those poor peasants were not acting in the spirit we most venerate, most adore; that theirs was not the true heart language which we cannot choose but love? And what has been their reward? They have sent down their name to be the by-word of all after ages; the worst reproach of the worst men a name convertible with atheism and devil-worship.

  James Anthony Froude

  Heart, Men, Names

  James Anthony Froude, John Tulloch (1849). “Fraser's Magazine”, p.546

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• I was a rebellious child, a rebellious lover, a rebellious couturière - a real devil.

  Coco Chanel

  Children, Real, Lovers

  "Paris, Paris : Journey Into the City of Light‎". Book by David Downie, p. 93, 2005.

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