Superstitious Quotes - Page 8

• 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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• It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it - and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief.

  Peter Medawar

  Spiritual, Religious, Blood

  Peter Brian Medawar (1996). “The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science”, p.210, Oxford University Press, USA

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• What a weak, credulous, incredulous, unbelieving, superstitious, bold, frightened, what a ridiculous world ours is, as far as concerns the mind of man. How full of inconsistencies, contradictions and absurdities it is. I declare that taking the average of many minds that have recently come before me ... I should prefer the obedience, affections and instinct of a dog before it.

  Michael Faraday

  Dog, Men, Average

  Michael Faraday, F. James (1999). “The Correspondence of Michael Faraday, Volume 4: 1849-1855”, p.542, IET

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• Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is not asceticism; it has again and again in the past repressed fanatical and cruel exaggerations of asceticism. Catholicism is not mere mysticism; it is even now defending human reason against the mere mysticism of the Pragmatists.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fighting, Past, Asceticism

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• I think Catholicism took root very quickly in Ireland because it's a very superstitious religion, the holy ghost, the holy spirit, it has a goddess, very visual, the music.

  Conor McPherson

  Thinking, Roots, Spirit

  "Interview: Conor McPherson and Ciarán Hinds of ‘The Eclipse’". Interview with Nell Minow, moviemom.com. March 25, 2010.

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• I think that scientific persons of the future will scoff at scientific persons of the present. They will scoff because scientific persons of the present thought so many important things were superstitious.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Thinking, Important, Persons

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• I am a sick man...I am a wicked man. An unattractive man.  I think my liver hurts.  However, i don't know a fig about my sickness, and am not sure what it is that hurts me.  I am not being treated and never have been, though I respect medicine.  What's more, I am also superstitious in the extreme; well, at least enough to respect medicine.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Hurt, Men, Thinking

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• In the end, advertising rests upon the fact that consumers are a fickle and superstitious mob, incapable of any real judgment as to what it wants or how it is to get what it thinks it likes.

  Walter Lippmann

  Real, Thinking, Fickle

  Walter Lippmann, Julien C. Sprott (2015). “Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest”, p.52, University of Wisconsin Pres

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• Explain to me again the difference between superstitious beliefs or pagan incantations, and scientific ones. Be braver - you cannot cross a chasm in two small jumps.

  David Lloyd George

  Two, Differences, Belief

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• I'm superstitious a little bit.

  Jake Gyllenhaal

  Littles, Bits, Little Bit

  "10 Years After 'Brokeback,' Jake Gyllenhaal Remembers Heath Ledger: "Way Beyond His Years as a Human"". Interview with Stephen Galloway, www.hollywoodreporter.com. November 25, 2015.

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• The governments alone are responsible for the spread of the superstitious awe with which the common man looks upon every bit of paper upon which the treasury or agencies which it controls have printed the magical words legal tender.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, Agency, Looks

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• I resist all established beliefs. My religion basically is to be immediate, to live in the now. It's an old cliche, I know, but it's mine. I envy people of faith. I'm incapable of believing in anything supernatural. So far, at least. Not that I wouldn't like to. I mean, I want to believe. I do pray. I pray to something ... up there. I have a God sense. It's not religious so much as superstitious. It's part of being human, I guess ... Do unto others: How much deeper into religion do we really need to go?

  Jack Nicholson

  Religious, Believe, Mean

  "What I've Learned: Jack Nicholson" by Mike Sager, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

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• Okay, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I'm a very superstitious person. I'm walking onto the plane as we speak. I'm putting my hands on the outside of the plane and my feet are on the lip of the plane. I have to do it every time before I fly.

  Jessica Chastain

  Hands, Feet, Secret

  Interview with Michael Shannon, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 27, 2011.

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• Now that science has helped us to overcome the awe of the unknown in nature, we are the slaves of social pressures of our own making. When called upon to act independently, we cry for patterns, systems, and authorities. If by enlightenment and intellectual progress we mean the freeing of man from superstitious belief in evil forces, in demons and fairies, in blind fate--in short, the emancipation from fear--then denunciation of what is currently called reason is the greatest service reason can render.

  Max Horkheimer

  Mean, Fate, Men

  Max Horkheimer (2004). “EPZ Eclipse of Reason”, p.126, A&C Black

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• All belief that does not make us more happy, more free, more loving, more active, more calm, is, I fear, a mistaken and superstitious belief.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Doe, Calm, Belief

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• Can it really be said that before the day of our pretentious science, humanity was composed solely of imbeciles and the superstitious?

  R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz

  Humanity, Imbeciles, Pretentious

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• There are few men more superstitious than soldiers. They are, after all, the men who live closest to death.

  Mary Stewart

  Men, Soldier, Navy

  Mary Stewart (1979). “The Last Enchantment”

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• I'm very superstitious... I never shout at magpies, walk under ladders or put my shoes on the table.

  Fatboy Slim

  Technology, Shoes, Ladders

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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