Superstitions Quotes - Page 25

• My mother believed in all superstitions, plus she made some up.

  Donald E. Westlake

  Mother, Made, Plus

  5 Copy quote

• Superstitions add texture to life.

  Ilona Andrews

  Add, Texture

  4 Copy quote

• In a way, the futile excuses many people use to cover their superstitions are demolished. They think it is enough to have some sort of religious fervor, however ridiculous, not realizing that true religion must be according to God's will as the perfect measure; that He can never deny Himself and is no mere spirit form to be changed around according to individual preference.

  John Calvin

  Religious, Thinking, People

  4 Copy quote

• Go get yourself crucified and then rise on the third day.

  Voltaire

  Belief, Thirds

  13 Copy quote

• The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation, is ever more dangerous. Jesus had to work on the perilous confines of reason and religion; and a step to the right or left might place him within the grasp of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Jesus, Mean, Writing

  9 Copy quote

• Stand up and be strong! No fear. No superstition. Face the truth as it is!

  Swami Vivekananda

  Strong, Faces, No Fear

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.434, Manonmani Publishers

  91 Copy quote

  Show source

• The presence of death annihilates all superstitions. We are the children of death, and it is death that rescues us from the deceptions of life. In the midst of life he calls us and summons us to him.

  Sadegh Hedayat

  Death, Children, Deception

  Sadegh Hedayat (2010). “The Blind Owl”, p.56, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Superstition? Who can define the boundary line between the superstition of yesterday and the scientific fact of tomorrow?

  Garrett Fort

  Yesterday, Lines, Facts

  8 Copy quote

• I don't know concretely if it's due to superstition, but any time a new rule is implemented into the NBA or a new piece of equipment or a new technology, there is always a transition and adjustment period by players and coaches and anyone involved with the game.

  Stu Jackson

  Technology, Player, Nba

  4 Copy quote

• In the days of witchcraft it used to be believed that if one person secretly made a waxen image of another and stuck pins into the image, its counterpart would suffer tortures, and that if the image was melted the person would die. This superstition is almost realized in the relation between the private self and its social reflection. They seem to separate but are darkly united, and what is done to the one is done to the other.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Reflection, Self, Suffering

  Charles Horton Cooley (1992). “Human Nature and the Social Order”, p.247, Transaction Publishers

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Henceforward the Christian Churches having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, came into the hands of the Encratites: and the Heathens, who in the fourth century came over in great numbers to the Christians, embraced more readily this sort of Christianity, as having a greater affinity with their old superstitions, than that of the sincere Christians; who by the lamps of the seven Churches of Asia, and not by the lamps of the Monasteries, had illuminated the Church Catholic during the three first centuries.

  Isaac Newton

  Christian, Numbers, Hands

  Isaac Newton “Observations”, Lulu.com

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Worship, Invisible, Seeds

  Thomas Hobbes (2015). “Leviathan”, p.122, Xist Publishing

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• If anyone decided to call the sea Neptune, and corn Ceres, and to misapply the name of Bacchus rather than to give liquor its right name, so be it; and let him dub the round world "Mother of the Gods" so long as he is careful not really to infest his mind with base superstitions.

  Lucretius

  Mother, Sea, Names

  4 Copy quote

• If the empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world; but if all religion and morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained?

  John Adams

  Hypocrisy, Religion, World

  4 Copy quote

• Let us therefore reject all superstition in order to become more human; but in speaking against fanaticism, let us not imitate the fanatics: they are sick men in delirium who want to chastise their doctors. Let us assuage their ills, and never embitter them, and let us pour drop by drop into their souls the divine balm of toleration, which they would reject with horror if it were offered to them all at once.

  Voltaire

  Men, Doctors, Order

  23 Copy quote