Superstitions Quotes - Page 24

• I loathe the mess of mean superstitions and misunderstood prophecies which is still rammed down the throats of children under the name of Christianity.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Religious, Children, Mean

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• Christianity is a pestilent superstition.

  Tacitus

  Religious, Religion, Christianity

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• I'm disturbed when people let superstition, magical thinking, extreme conspiracy theories and so on blur their minds.

  John Shirley

  Thinking, People, Mind

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• Danger is the very basis of superstition. It produces a searching after help supernaturally when human means are no longer supposed to be available.

  Benjamin Haydon

  Mean, Helping, Danger

  Benjamin Robert Haydon (1876). “Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table-talk”, p.409

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• The superstition in which we were brought up never loses its power over us, even after we understand it.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Loses, Bigotry

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• But on the heights of the Himalayas I have a place where I am determined nothing shall enter except pure truth. There I want to work out this idea about which I have spoken to you today. There are an Englishman and an Englishwoman in charge of the place. The purpose is to train seekers of truth and to bring up children without fear and without superstition. They shall not hear about Christs and Buddhas and Shivas and Vishnus - none of these.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Motivational, Children, Ideas

  Swami Vivekananda (1995). “Prabuddha Bharata: Or Awakened India”

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• The greatest American superstition is belief in facts.

  Hermann Graf Keyserling

  Facts, Belief

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• Superstition has its practical uses.

  Barbara Mertz

  Use, Practicals

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• Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.

  Seneca the Younger

  Worship, Worship God, Profane

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• The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last one, even if it's just a few notes in a file. I dread not having work in progress.

  Terry Pratchett

  Book, Progress, Lasts

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• Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.

  Richard Matheson

  Circles, Forever, Entering

  Richard Matheson (1954). “I Am Legend”, Greenwich, Connecticut : Fawcett

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• As science pushes forward, ignorance and superstition gallop around the flanks and bite science in the rear with big dark teeth.

  Philip Jose Farmer

  Ignorance, Dark, Teeth

  "Riders of the Purple Wage or The Great Gavage". Book by Philip Jose Farmer, 1967.

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• An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth - scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, the comics, and many books - might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity, and consumerism. We keep at it, and through constant repetition many of them finally get it.

  Carl Sagan

  Children, Book, Teaching

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.66, Ballantine Books

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• I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same 50% rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't... Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe...same as the Voodoo Lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles, it's all the same: 50-50. So just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself.

  George Carlin

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  "You Are All Diseased". Book by George Carlin, 1999.

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• I don't believe in hell and heaven anymore. Or angels. I think Islam is a superstition like every other superstition. But now because it's a superstition, unlike Christianity, that hasn't been tested and hasn't gone through a process of enlightenment, I think it's a dangerous superstition.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Believe, Angel, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Philosophy has its bugbears, as well as superstition.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Philosophy, Wells

  William Gilmore Simms (1853). “Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside”, p.48

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• It must appear impossible, that theism could, from reasoning, have been the primary religion of human race, and have afterwards, by its corruption, given birth to polytheism and to all the various superstitions of the heathen world. Reason, when obvious, prevents these corruptions: When abstruse, it keeps the principles entirely from the knowledge of the vulgar, who are alone liable to corrupt any principle or opinion.

  David Hume

  Race, Principles, World

  David Hume (2016). “The Natural History of Religion: Revision of Great Book”, p.5, VM eBooks

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• The gods, my dear simple fellow, are a mere expression coined by vulgar superstition. We frown upon such coinage here.

  Aristophanes

  God, Simple, Expression

  Aristophanes, William Arrowsmith (1962). “The clouds: Translated by William Arrowsmith, with sketches by Thomas McClure”

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• All who have their reward on Earth, the fruits Of painful superstition and blind zeal, Naught seeking but the praise of men, here find Fit retribution, empty as their deeds.

  Don DeLillo

  Men, Earth, Deeds

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• Writers don't seem to benefit much by the advance of science, although they thrive on superstitions of all kinds.

  Northrop Frye

  Benefits, Kind, Thrive

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.442, University of Toronto Press

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• Science that abdicates its cultural values risks being perceived as an extension of technology, an instrument in the hands of political or economic power. Humanity that disavows science risks falling into the hands of superstition.

  Nicola Cabibbo

  Fall, Technology, Hands

  "Address to the Holy Father". "The cultural values of science", The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Scripta Varia 105, page xiv, November 8-11, 2002.

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• A knowledge of history as detailed as possible is essential if we are to comprehend the present and be prepared for the future. Fate...is not the blind superstition or helplessness that waits stupidly for what may happen. Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Fate

  Pearl S. Buck (2013). “My Several Worlds: A Personal Record”, p.69, Open Road Media

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• I am an artist, I trade in uncertainty and superstition and cant. I invent dark visions of impossible situations that can never be resolved.

  Ralph Steadman

  Dark, Artist, Impossible Situations

  "The Joke's Over". Book by Ralph Steadman, 2006.

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• In the presence of death I affirm and reaffirm the truth of all that I have said against the superstitions of the world. I would say that much on the subject with my last breath.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Atheism, World, Lasts

  Robert Green Ingersoll, Herman Eugene Kittredge (1909). “The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll”

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• Apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do in order to become acceptable to God is mere superstition and religious folly.

  Immanuel Kant

  Religious, Men, Thinking

  "German Thought, From The Seven Years' War To Goethe's Death : Six Lectures" by Karl Hillebrand, (p. 208), 1880.

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