SUPERSTITION QUOTES II
quotations about superstition
Aaah ... when two Neptunes appear in the sky it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
I wish to substitute humanity for superstition, the love of our fellow men, for the fear of God.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Six Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll on Six Sermons by the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
Superstition originates among ordinary people in the early and all too zealous instruction they receive in religion: they hear of mysteries, miracles, deeds of the Devil, and consider it very probable that things of this sort could occur in everything anywhere.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
In doing practically only the things which He testifies He cares nothing about, superstition neglects those which He has ordained and said are pleasing to Him or even openly rejects them. Therefore those who (in order to worship God) establish religions which have their source in their own minds, only worship their own dreams.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
There is a superstition in avoiding superstition.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Superstition", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
The quaking bystanders in a superstitious age would soon have slain an isolated bold man in the beginning of his innovations.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Blood Meridian
The beginning of superstition was the subtlety of Satan; the beginning of true religion, the service of God.
GENNADIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Such people as can be prevailed upon to believe that their reason is depraved, may easily be led by the nose, and duped into superstition at the pleasure of those in whom they confide, and there remain from generation to generation: for when they throw by the law of reason the only one which God gave them to direct them in their speculations and duty, they are exposed to ignorant or insidious teachers, and also to their own irregular passions, and to the folly and enthusiasm of those about them, which nothing but reason can prevent or restrain.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816
The master of superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Superstition", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect.
BERNARD BECKETT
Genesis
Hence, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence!
Thy chain of adamant can bind
That little world, the human mind,
And sink its noblest powers to impotence.
SAMUEL RODGERS
Ode to Superstition
The most infallible mark of ignorance is superstition.
STANISLAUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The funny thing about superstitions is that the nonsense ones are perfectly reasonable if they're YOUR superstitions, it's everybody else's that are ridiculous.
FLAVIA BERTOLINI
"Don't do that, it's bad luck! There are a lot of superstitions out there, and some of them are really quite peculiar", Mirror, April 30, 2017
How weak our mind is; how quickly it is terrified and unbalanced as soon as we are confronted with a small, incomprehensible fact. Instead of dismissing the problem with: "We do not understand because we cannot find the cause," we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and supernatural powers.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
"The Horla"
Aren't we supposed to free ourselves from lies and superstition? Isn't that the obligation of intelligent beings?
ANNE RICE
The Wolves of Midwinter
What if cards don't go my way?
And it's sure to spoil my day
But in voices loud and clear you say to me, "It's only superstition
It's only your imagination
It's only all of the things that you fear and the things from which you can't escape"
COLDPLAY
"Only Superstition", brothers & sisters
Religion is not removed by removing superstition.
CICERO
De Divinatione
Primitive superstition lies just below the surface of even the most tough-minded individuals, and it is precisely those who most fight against it who are the first to succumb to its suggestive effects.
CARL JUNG
Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle