quotations about superstition
Inclinations of illusion make weak men superstitious and superstitious men weak.... The illusion that leads them to mistake the subjective for the objective, to take the voice of inner sense for knowledge of things themselves, also makes the tendency to superstition comprehensible.
IMMANUEL KANT
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View
How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
The Complete Essays
Superstition is the spleen of the soul.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
I would rather dwell in the dim fog of superstition than in air rarified to nothing by the air-pump of unbelief, in which the panting breast expires, vainly and convulsively gasping for breath.
JEAN PAUL
Titan
Very superstitious, wash your face and hands,
Rid me of the problem, do all that you can,
Keep me in a daydream, keep me goin' strong,
You don't wanna save me, sad is my song
STEVIE WONDER
"Superstition", Talking Book
You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.... Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
"Amor Fati", Texts and Pretexts
I don't consider myself superstitious, but if I spill salt, you can bet your cloven hooves I am throwing a pinch over my shoulder to blind the devil.
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
There is in superstition a senseless fear of God; religion consists in the pious worship of Him.
CICERO
De Natura Deorum
The scientific spirit has cast out the demons, and presented us with nature clothed in her right mind and living under the reign of law. It has given us, for the sorceries of the alchemist, the beautiful laws of chemistry; for the dreams of the astrologer, the sublime truths of astronomy; for the wild visions of cosmogony, the monumental records of geology; for the anarchy of diabolism, the laws of God.
JAMES A. GARFIELD
speech given while a member of the U. S. House of Representatives, December 16, 1867
Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Six Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll on Six Sermons by the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
Pure religion and undefiled softens the manners by enlightening the mind, while superstition by making it blind, inspires every kind of madness.
VOLTAIRE
attributed, Day's Collacon
If the hunters think we do all things by chants and spells, they may believe so -- it does not hurt them.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
By the Waters of Babylon
Science of to-day -- the superstition of to-morrow. Science of to-morrow -- the superstition of to-day.
CHARLES FORT
The Book of the Damned
Men become superstitious, not because they have too much imagination, but because they are not aware that they have any.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
Atoms of Thought
Face the demons of the past
Portend a lost continent
Follow the tracks to carnage
Forever it will seal your fate
Beyond the superstition
No man's land
SINISTER
"Beyond the Superstition"
Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible....
BATMAN
Detective Comics #33
On the hills the fires burned at midnight
Superstition plagued the air
Sparks fly as the fires burn at midnight
The stars are out and magic is here...
BLACKMORE'S NIGHT
"Fires at Midnight"
The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation, is ever dangerous.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to William Short, August 4, 1820
As it is the chief concern of wise men, to retrench the evils of life, by reasonings of philosophy; so it is the employment of fools, to multiply them, by sentiments of superstition.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Foul Superstition! howsoe'er disguised,
Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross,
For whatsoever symbol thou art prized,
Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss!
Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross?
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage