Superstition Quotes

It is also the irrational instinct of religionism, the vague yearning for something to worship—a reflection or shadow of the true devotional principle—which prompts men to project a subjective image of the lower, personal mind, and to endow it with human attributes, and then to claim to receive "revelations" from it; and this—the image of the Beast, or unspiritual mind,—is their anthropomorphic God, a fabulous monster the worship of which has ever prompted men to fanaticism and persecution, and has inflicted untold misery and dread upon the masses of mankind, as well as physical torture and death in hideous forms upon the many martyrs who have refused to bend the knee to this Gorgonean phantom of the beast-mind of man. Truly, where the worshipers of this image of the Beast predominate, the man whose brow and hand are unbranded by this superstition, who neither thinks nor acts in accordance with it, suffers ostracism if not virulent persecution.

James Morgan Pryse

British diplomats and Anglo-American types in Washington have a near-superstitious prohibition on uttering the words 'Special Relationship' to describe relations between Britain and America, lest the specialness itself vanish like a phantom at cock-crow.

Christopher Hitchens

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit and not when they miss and commit to memory the one and forget and pass over the other.

Sir Francis Bacon

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Edmund Burke

I die adoring God loving my friends not hating my enemies and detesting superstition.

Voltaire

Religion is not removed by removing superstition.

Cicero

There is in superstition a senseless fear of God.

Cicero

Every country has a cultural legacy and religious practices for reasons that I don’t believe fall under the category of superstition, something that a religious scholar should understand.

Santosh Kalwar

Appa enjoys our current prosperity with considerable hesitation, as if it were undeserved. He’s given to quoting a proverb that says wealth shouldn’t strike suddenly like a visitation, but instead grow gradually like a tree.

Vivek Shanbhag

There are none so superstitious as the educated, for often they see in their own time - as an article of faith unsubstantiated by experience - the final end of human progress.

Charles A. Coulombe

In a segment of the Sermon on the Mount, appearing in Matthew 5, Jesus is reported to have set six new teachings of his against six old Jewish teachings. The latter are introduced by such words as 'You have heard that it was said by them of old time' and the former by 'But I say unto you.'Since both the teachings of old time and Jesus' new teachings are predicated on the same profoundly mistaken views of human nature and of the world in general, it is unimportant for us here today to compare and contrast these teachings or to determine which is better or worse in some way or other. The point is that whether better or worse, in this way or that, both are lodged in an egregiously mistaken mythology -- but in a mythology of enormous importance for us, because it is one of the wellsprings of Western culture.

Delos McKown

Standing at the window, reading the menu of Obediah's services, the Minotaur wishes he could believe in what she has to offer: a promise woven into deep lines of his palm, some turn of fate told by a card. But faith is a nebulous thing and charlatans a dime a dozen; it's always been that way. The Minotaur both envies and pities the devout.

Steven Sherrill

Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.

Emma Goldman

There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present. Underneath all civilization, ancient or modern, moved and still moves a sea of magic, superstition and sorcery. Perhaps they will remain when the works of our reason have passed away.

Will Durant

POUNDttWe spend twelve hundred generations developing t so-called civilization to the point where it produces an expert who can offer us salvation from our superstitions, and all we end up with is another superstition! If it takes someone like Freud to save us from our neuroses, what’s ttit gonna take to save us from Freud?

Billy Marshall-Stoneking

If a black black cat crosses your path, it suggests that the animal is going somewhere.

M.K. Bhutta

. . . have not some religions, including the most influential forms of Christianity, taught that the heart of man is totally corrupt? How could the course of religion in its entire sweep not be marked by practices that are shameful in their cruelty and lustfulness, and by beliefs that are degraded and intellectually incredible? What else than what we can find could be expected, in the case of people having little knowledge and no secure method of knowing; with primitive institutions, and with so little control of natural forces that they lived in a constant state of fear?

John Dewey

Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Always marveling at how New Age pseudo-philosophy had taken over the Internet.

Jeff Lindsay

Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?

Aeschylus

Why is it that showers and even storms seem to come by chance, so that many people think it quite natural to pray for rain or fine weather, though they would consider it ridiculous to ask for an eclipse by prayer?

Henri Poincaré

Though the continued march of intellect and education have nearly obliterated from the mind of the Scots a belief in the marvelous, still a love of the supernatural lingers among the more mountainous districts of the northern kingdom; for 'the Schoolmaster' finds it no easy task, even when aided by all the light of science, to uproot the prejudices of more than two thousand years. ("The Phantom Regiment")

James Grant

A child conceived on Christmas Eve is considered unlucky and will later resent his parents for their unholy transgression, their lack of control and piety. The child may be deformed with a harelip or be cursed with the ears and head of a wolf. Or the infant may be born a werewolf.

Jody Shields

All that Delaura noticed, though, was the uproarious crowing of the roosters.'There are only six of them, but they make enough noise for a hundred,' said the Abbess. 'Furthermore, a pig spoke and a goat gave birth to triplets.' And she added with fervor: 'Everything has been like this since your Bishop did us the favor of sending us his poisoned gift.'She viewed with equal alarm the garden flowering with so much vigor that it seemed contra natura. As they walked across it she pointed out to Delaura that there were flowers of exceptional size and color, some with an unbearable scent. As far as she was concerned, everything ordinary has something supernatural about it.

Gabriel García Márquez

Not one of us, even after last night, can say the word "ghost" without a littleinvoluntary smile. No, the menace of the supernatural is that it attacks wheremodern minds are weakest, where we have abandoned our protective armor ofsuperstition and have no substitute defense.

Shirley Jackson

The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much – indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are adverse to sitting down to dine thirteen at a table, or being helped to salt, or walking under a ladder, of seeing a single magpie flirting his chequered tale. There are, of course, children of light who have set their faces against all this, although even a newspaperman, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for everyone is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt, unlike any other, is a visionary without scratching.

W.B. Yeats

Superstition would seem to be simply cowardice in regard to the supernatural.

Theophrastus

... science demands a terrible price - that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not.

David Brin

Ever since Plato most philosophers have considered it part of their business to produce ‘proofs’ of immortality and the existence of God. They have found fault with the proofs of their predecessors — Saint Thomas rejected Saint Anselm's proofs, and Kant rejected Descartes' — but they have supplied new ones of their own. In order to make their proofs seem valid, they have had to falsify logic, to make mathematics mystical, and to pretend that deepseated prejudices were heaven-sent intuitions.

Bertrand Russell

It is one of the greatest Curses visited upon Mankind, he told me, that they shall fear where no Fear is: this astrological and superstitious Humour disarms men's Hearts, it breaks their Courage, it makes them help to bring such Calamities on themselves. Then he stopped short and looked at me, but my Measure was not yet fill'd up so I begg' d him to go on, go on. And he continued: First, they fancy that such ill Accidents must come to pass, and so they render themselves fit Subjects to be wrought upon; it is a Disgrace to the Reason and Honour of Mankind that every fantasticall Humourist can presume to interpret the Skies (here he grew Hot and put down his Dish) and to expound the Time and Seasons and Fates of Empires, assigning the Causes of Plagues and Fires to the Sins of Men or the Judgements of God. This weakens the Constancy of Humane Actions, and affects Men with Fears, Doubts, Irresolutions and Terrours.I was afraid of your Moving Picture, I said without thought, and that was why I left.It was only Clock-work, Nick.But what of the vast Machine of the World, in which Men move by Rote but in which nothing is free from Danger?Nature yields to the Froward and the Bold.It does not yield, it devours: You cannot master or manage Nature.But, Nick, our Age can at least take up the Rubbidge and lay the Foundacions: that is why we must study the principles of Nature, for they are our best Draught.No, sir, you must study the Humours and Natures of Men: they are corrupt, and therefore your best Guides to understand Corrupcion.The things of the Earth must be understood by the sentient Faculties, not by the Understanding. There was a Silence between us now until Sir Chris. says, Is your Boy in the Kitchin? I am mighty Hungry.

Peter Ackroyd

It was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods, — ‘Aye,’ asked he again, ‘but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?’ And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happens much oftener, neglect and pass them by.

Francis Bacon

e have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand.

Frederick Douglass

When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased themselves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition robed and crowned, I am amazed.

Robert G. Ingersoll

Somewhere I’d heard, or invented perhaps, that the only pleasures found during a waning moon are misfortunes in disguise. Superstition aside, I avoid pleasure during the waning or absent moon out of respect for the bounty this world offers me. I profit from great harvests in life and believe in the importance of seasons.

Roman Payne

I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay hands on everything they can get.

Napoléon Bonaparte

Excuses, criticisms, and superstitions are vitamins for haters, but poison for the successful. Rise above!

Steve Maraboli

Most people who offer their help do it to make themselves feel better, not us. To be honest, I don't blame them. It's superstition: If you give assistance to the family in need... if you throw salt over your shoulder... if you don't step on the cracks, then maybe you'll be immune. Maybe you'll be able to convince yourself that this could never happen to you.

Jodi Picoult

The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down.

Cormac McCarthy

God made them as stubble to our swords.

Oliver Cromwell

Nothing forbids man to enjoy himself, save grim and gloomy superstition

Baruch Spinoza

There are savages without God in any proper sense of the word, but none without ghosts.

Thomas Henry Huxley

And how easy it is to recognize the revenant shapes that the old unchanging enemies—racism, leader worship, superstition—assume when they reappear amongst us (often bodyguarded by their new apologists).

Christopher Hitchens

The American people spend thousands of dollars to propagate the doctrines of the fall of man, the creation of the world out of nothing in six days by a personal God, vicarious atonement, absolution from sin by the shedding of innocent blood. This is the Christianity offered to the poor and illiterate of India...Christianity has percolated through the layers of dogmatism and bigotry, of intolerance and superstition, of damnation and hell fire. It takes on itself the quality of these layers and imparts them to those that are received within its folds.

Virchand Gandhi

Rini moved in to kiss him, but on his cheek. She gave him two pecks on his right cheek and one more on his left, which caused him to blush. “Three kisses, huh?”She beamed at him and nodded when she explained, “Fo’ Faith, Hope, an’ Charity.

Jason Medina

When we are meditating in a haunted graveyard, or even in our rooms, frightening external and internal appearances may arise during Chöd practice. If this happens, check the two 'superstitions'—the external, frightening appearance, and the internal appearance of the inherently existent 'I' that is frightened. Do they exist from their own sides? With determination, check for the 'I' that experiences fear, whether of a sight or a sound. Recalling that our purpose is to compassionately sacrifice ourselves to the spirits, and remembering emptiness of the three spheres of giving, we mix our minds with space and visualize the spirits consuming our bodies as well as our sense of an inherently existent self. After the spirits have eaten the body, again investigate the two superstitions. It is by checking for the independent 'I' that we come to realize emptiness.

Zongtrul Losang Tsöndru

With their backs to the sunrise they worship the night.

Robert G. Ingersoll

You don’t have to be a believer in a lot of superstition and nonsense - there’s a difference between thinking to oneself and thinking as a form of conversation, even if there are no answers.

Nadine Gordimer

You can make a successful run for political office in this country without an especially thick résumé, any exceptional talent for expressing yourself, a noteworthy education or, for that matter, a basic grasp of science.But you better have religion. You better be ready to profess your faith in and fealty to God — the Judeo-Christian one, of course. And you better be convincing. A dust-up last week in the 2014 race for a United States Senate seat from Arkansas provided a sad reminder of this, showing once again that our ballyhooed separation of church and state is less canyon than itty-bitty crack.

Frank Bruni

A historic transition is occurring, barely noticed. Slowly, quietly, imperceptibly, religion is shriveling in America, as it has done in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and other advanced societies. Supernatural faith increasingly belongs to the Third World. The First World is entering the long-predicted Secular Age, when science and knowledge dominate. The change promises to be another shift of civilization, like past departures of the era of kings, the time of slavery, the Agricultural Age, the epoch of colonialism, and the like. Such cultural transformations are partly invisible to contemporary people, but become obvious in retrospect.

James A. Haught

Government” itself does no harm, because it is a fictional entity. But the belief in “government” – the notion that some people actually have the moral right to rule over others – has caused immeasurable pain and suffering, injustice and oppression, enslavement and death.

Larken Rose

The widest cause of secularization may be the steady change of thinking so that there is the expectation that reason and a consideration of cause and effect will help with explanations. Supernatural power began to be removed from explanations of the process of life or society in the seventeenth century, and although there may be a nod towards astrology or the crossed finger today, superstition is not seriously used in decision making. ... Scientific thinking, which similarly developed in the seventeenth century, has been influential in bringing this change. We now see that tornadoes and earthquakes have rational explanations in terms of climatology and seismology rather than as divine punishments. Most people when deciding whether to take a new job, embark on a divorce, or simply plan a holiday will not seek divine guidance, but rather discuss with themselves or others the issues of cause and effect.

Jim Herrick

All Religions have this in common, that they are an outrage to common sense for they are pieced together out of a variety of elements, some of which seem so unworthy, sordid and at odds with man’s reason, that any strong and vigorous intelligence laughs at them... The human intellect is only capable of tackling mediocre subjects: it disdains petty subjects, and is startled by large ones. There is no reason to be surprised if it finds any religion hard to accept at first, for all are deficient in the mediocre and the commonplace, nor that it should require skill to induce belief. For the strong intellect laughs at religion, while the weak and superstitious mind marvels at it but is easily scandalized by it.

Pierre Charron

Ours was the age of enlightenment, he said, when the battle cry was, ‘We must know, we shall know!’, and reason would depose superstition and we be liberated by it.

Claire Robertson

The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.

Walter Chrysler

Praise be to Allah, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: 'But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)'; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped, Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders....All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in 'Al- Mughni,' Imam al-Kisa'i in 'Al-Bada'i,' al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: 'As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life.'On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah.'...We -- with Allah's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson....Almighty Allah also says: 'O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things.'Almighty Allah also says: 'So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in f

Osama bin Laden

The pens sharpen – Islamophobia! No such thing. Primitive Middle Eastern religions (and most others) are much the same – Islam, Christianity and Judaism all define themselves through disgust for women's bodies.

Polly Toynbee

We’re programmed to imagine bad things happening to us, as opposed to good things, even if the good are more likely. It’s kind of a protective pessimism: if we worry about the worst happening, it may miss our door.

Ruth Dugdall

A broken mirror is good luck if you want it to be.

Marty Rubin

Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life—yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammurabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

Michael Shermer

As Karl Marx once noted: 'Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.' William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes trial was a tragedy. The creationists and intelligent design theorists are a farce.

Michael Shermer

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Superstition Quotes

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