Superstitious Quotes - Page 7

• Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious.

  Umberto Eco

  Discipline, Today, Scientist

  "God isn't big enough for some people" by Umberto Eco, www.telegraph.co.uk. November 27, 2005.

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• I'm only superstitious on the tennis court.

  Rafael Nadal

  Tennis, Tennis Courts, Court

  "Travel tips from tennis ace Rafael Nadal". www.cnn.com. May 13, 2013.

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• Even now, I'm very superstitious, in silly ways. I always put my left boot on first. Or on set, I always tie my bow tie from right to left.

  Matt Smith

  Silly, Ties, Boots

  "When Esquire met Doctor Who". Interview, www.esquire.co.uk. April 1, 2010.

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• I didn't tell any of my friends that I wanted to be a comedian, because I was superstitious. I thought if I told people, it wouldn't happen. So I kept it all in my head for years and years.

  Steven Wright

  Years, People, Comedian

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• The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

  Edward Gibbon

  Religious, Reflection, People

  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ch. 2 (1776 - 1788)

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• The world is filled with people who are no longer needed. And who try to make slaves of all of us. And they have their music and we have ours. Theirs, the wasted songs of a superstitious nightmare. And without their music and ideological miscarriages to compare our songs of freedom to, we'd not have any opposite to compare music with - - and like the drifting wind, hitting against no obstacle, we'd never know its speed, its power.

  Woody Guthrie

  Song, Miscarriage, Wind

  Woody Guthrie, Dave Marsh, Harold Leventhal (1992). “Pastures of plenty: a self-portrait”, Perennial

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• Superstitious." What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called "faith". But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition?

  Jostein Gaarder

  Friday, Astrology, People

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• Yet, when these facts are seen side by side with other facts in the case, it is difficult not to become lost in superstitious awe. Their very absurdity seems to prohibit the use of the words 'chance' and 'coincidence.' For the sceptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman Law, it is administered with sub-human inefficiency.

  Eric Ambler

  Law, Use, Facts

  Eric Ambler (1992). “A Coffin for Dimitrios/Judgement on Deltchev/Passage of Arms: Three Complete Novels in One Volume”, Galahad Books

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• Religion is still useful among the herd - that it helps their orderly conduct as nothing else could. The crude human animal is in-eradicably superstitious, and there is every biological reason why they should be. Take away his Christian god and saints, and he will worship something else.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Christian, Animal, Saint

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• What could be more superstitious than the idea that money brings forth food?

  Wendell Berry

  Ideas

  Wendell Berry (2001). “In the Presence of Fear: Three Essays for a Changed World”

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• Life is not easy. We all have problems-even tragedies-to deal with, and luck has nothing to do with it. Bad luck is only the superstitious excuse for those who don't have the wit to deal with the problems of life.

  Joan Lowery Nixon

  Good Luck, Tragedy, Problem

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• 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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• Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things. The honest thief, the tender murderer, the superstitious atheist.

  Robert Browning

  Atheist, Writing, Atheism

  'Bishop Blougram's Apology' (1855) l. 395

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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