Superstitious Quotes - Page 7

• There was really nothing for serious men to do in cases of wild gossip, for superstitious rustics will say and believe anything.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Believe, Men, Serious Man

  H. P. Lovecraft (2013). “The Classic Horror Stories”, p.83, OUP Oxford

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• I’m not superstitious. I’m a witch. Witches aren’t superstitious. We are what people are superstitious of.

  Terry Pratchett

  People, Witch

  Terry Pratchett (2008). “Wintersmith: (Discworld Novel 35)”, p.162, Random House

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• All men, however highly educated, retain some superstitious inklings.

  H. G. Wells

  Men, Religion, Educated

  H. G. Wells (2015). “The Invisible Man”, p.80, Booklassic

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• We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them...

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Fear, Men, Imagination

  "The Poet at the Breakfast Table". Book by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., 1872.

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• Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious, will land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Self, Land, Ignorant

  Mahatma Gandhi, Dennis Dalton (1995). “Gandhi: Selected Political Writings”, p.146, Hackett Publishing

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• [Macbeth] is historically set in a place depicted by Shakespeare as brutal and violent, incredibly superstitious, and that's something that I do believe is Scottish.

  James McAvoy

  Believe, Scotland, Scottish

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• For men to focus on controlling women's reproduction to solve a society's problems seems nothing short of mad or, at best, superstitious. But men's superstition or insanity has real and dire consequences for the women who are its object. And states, too, home in on women's bodies, perhaps to create the illusion that men are in control of uncontrollable forces. Indeed, almost all governments try to control women's bodies and regulate their appearance in some way.

  Marilyn French

  Real, Home, Men

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• I'm a little superstitious.

  Bill Parcells

  Littles

  "Serby’s special Sunday Q & A with hall-of-fame-bound coach… Bill Parcells". Interview with Steve Serby, nypost.com. July 28, 2013.

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• I just don't analyze what I do, because I'm afraid I won't be able to do it anymore. I'm sort of superstitious. And that's why I've never looked back at any movie I've done.

  Andrew Niccol

  Done, Able

  "Andrew Niccol on his new drone-warfare drama Good Kill". Interview With Sam Fragoso, film.avclub.com. May 20, 2015.

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• Yet, if he would, man cannot live all to this world. If not religious, he will be superstitious. IF he worship not the true God, he will have his idols.

  Theodore Parker

  Religious, Men, Idols

  Theodore Parker (1864). “Critical Writings”, p.20

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• Superstition is related to this life, religion to the next; superstition is allied to fatality, religion to virtue; it is by the vivacity of earthly desires that we become superstitious; it is, on the contrary, by the sacrifice of these desires that we become religious.

  Madame de Stael

  Religious, Sacrifice, Desire

  "Life of Madame de Staël" by Abel Stevens, (Ch. XXXIV), 1880.

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• Religion, charity, pure benevolence, and morals, mingled up with superstitious rites and ferocious cruelty, form in their combination institutions the most powerful and the most pernicious that have ever afflicted mankind.

  John Quincy Adams

  Powerful, Charity, Moral

  John Quincy Adams (2017). “John Quincy Adams: Diaries 1821-1848”, p.329, Library of America

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• Ballplayers are a superstitious breed, nobody more than I, and while you are winning you'd murder anybody who tried to change your sweatshirt, let alone your uniform.

  Leo Durocher

  Winning, Uniforms, Murder

  Leo Durocher, Ed Linn (2009). “Nice Guys Finish Last”, p.82, University of Chicago Press

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• Religious mysticism is intellectual garbage. It’s a vestige of the old superstitious Dark Ages when nobody knew anything...It is one of those delusions that isn’t called insane only because there are so many people involved.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Religious, Dark, People

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• I know of one semibarbarous zone whose librarians repudiate the "vain and superstitious habit" of trying to find sense in books, equating such a quest with attempting to find meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines on the palms of one's hand.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Dream, Book, Hands

  Sean Kernan, Jorge Luis Borges (1999). “The secret books”, Leete'S Island Books

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• In fact a man in love or one consumed with hatred creates symbols for himself, as a superstitious man does, from a passion of conferring uniqueness on things or persons. A man who knows nothing of symbols is one of Dante's sluggards. This is why art mirrors itself in primitive rites or strong passions, seeking for symbols, revolving round the primitive taste for savagery, for what is irrational (blood and sex).

  Cesare Pavese

  Art, Strong, Sex

  Cesare Pavese (2017). “This Business of Living: Diaries 1935-1950”, p.286, Routledge

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• From the fame opinion of a soul distinct from the body came the practice of praying, first for the dead, and then to them with a long train of other absurd opinions, and superstitious practices.

  Joseph Priestley

  Practice, Long, Soul

  Joseph Priestley (1782). “An History of the Corruption of Christianity”, p.442

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• Of all the sciences, astronomy was the one the superstitious liked least.

  Ken MacLeod

  Astronomy

  "Learning the World". Book by Ken MacLeod, 2005.

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• Naive' is not a word I associate with the Southern Rule. Superstitious, perhaps, traditional, yes, maddeningly set in their way, certainly but not naive." "I meant you are naive. They must have a hidden motive." "This is why I have no politics," said Darvin. "I can't think in those terms.

  Ken MacLeod

  Thinking, Southern, Way

  Ken MacLeod (2012). “Learning The World: A novel of first contact”, p.187, Hachette UK

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• I've gotten a little superstitious about listening to music when I write. Once a story is going somewhere, I keep listening to the same music whenever I work on that story. It seems to help me keep in voice, and alternatively, if I need to make some kind of dramatic shift, I'll go and put on something different to shake myself awake...

  Kelly Link

  Writing, Voice, Listening

  "Kelly Link, Words by Flashlight". Interview with Lauren McLaughlin, www.sensesfive.com. June 7, 2006.

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• Thankfully, I'm not superstitious.

  Frank Hadden

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• It's extremely unlucky to be superstitious, for no other reason than it is always unlucky to be colossally stupid.

  Stephen Fry

  Stupid, Reason, Unlucky

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• Religions have been universal in the sense that all the people we know anything about have had a religion. But the differences among them are so great and so shocking that any common element that can be extracted is meaningless.... The older apologists for Christianity seem to have been better advised than some modern ones in condemning every religion but one as an impostor, as at bottom some kind of demon worship or at any rate a superstitious figment.

  John Dewey

  Differences, People, Atheism

  John Dewey, Larry Hickman, Thomas M. Alexander (1998). “The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, education, democracy”, p.403, Indiana University Press

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• Do you think I am superstitious? I am a super-atheist.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Atheist, Thinking, Atheism

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• Nothing is so convenient as a decisive argument ... which must at least silence the most arrogant bigotry and superstition, and free us from their impertinent solicitations. I flatter myself, that I have discovered an argument ... which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently, will be useful as long as the world endures. For so long, I presume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be found in all history, sacred and profane.

  David Hume

  Wise, Long, Silence

  David Hume, Eric Steinberg (1992). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature”, p.73, Hackett Publishing

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