Superstitious Quotes - Page 8

• 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

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Atheist, Thinking, Atheism

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• Thankfully, I'm not superstitious.

  Frank Hadden

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Ken MacLeod

  Astronomy

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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  39 Copy quote

  Show source

• Woman is the most superstitious animal beneath the moon. When a woman has a premonition that Tuesday will be a disaster, to which a man pays no heed, he will very likely lose his fortune then. This is not meant to be an occult or mystic remark. The female body is a vessel, and the universe drops its secrets into her far more quickly than it communicates them to the male.

  Edward Dahlberg

  Moon, Men, Animal

  Edward Dahlberg (1965). “Reasons of the heart”

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)—Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world—a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious—surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity.

  Walt Whitman

  School, Humanity, Democracy

  Walt Whitman (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Walt Whitman (Illustrated)”, p.1406, Delphi Classics

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I swear my car won't run unless I'm picking my nose: At least, I'm that superstitious about it, so I don't want to take any chances.

  Adam Carolla

  Running, Car, Noses

  9 Copy quote

• The unadmitted reason why traditional readers are hostile to e-books is that we still hold the superstitious idea that a book is like a soul, and that every soul should have its own body.

  Adam Kirsch

  Book, Should Have, Ideas

  47 Copy quote

• Hopefully it'll give us a bit of luck on the night, but I'm not really a superstitious person.

  Steven Gerrard

  Night, Giving, Luck

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source