Superstitions Quotes - Page 14

• There may be few instances in which the superstition that only measurable magnitudes can be important has done positive harm in the economic field: but the present inflation and employment problems are a very serious one.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Important, May, Fields

  Friedrich August von Hayek's Prize Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1974.

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• The peculiar foreign superstition that the English do not like love, the evidence being that they do not talk about it.

  V. S. Pritchett

  Like Love, Peculiar, Evidence

  "London Perceived" by V. S. Pritchett, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Ch. 1, (p. 14), 1962.

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• All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention - of barbarian invention - is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition - then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Book, Eye, Heart

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.15, Library of Alexandria

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• I decline Christianity because it is Jewish, because it is international, and because, in cowardly fashion, it preaches Peace on Earth.

  Erich Ludendorff

  Fashion, Earth, Belief

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• I have no lucky charm. I am 100 percent superstition-free, and I take nothing for granted.

  Jeff Bridges

  Lucky Charms, Granted, Percent

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• Wisdom: The first error is that of the southern people, and it consists in holding that these eastern and western places are real places. Give no quarter to that thought, whether it threatens you with fear, or tempts you with hopes. For this is Superstition and all who believe it will come in the end to the swamps, to the south and the jungles, to the far south. Part of the same error is to think that the Landlord is a real man.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Believe, Men

  "The Pilgrim's Regress". Book by C. S. Lewis, p. 117, 1933.

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• One of the greatest superstitions of our time is the belief that it has none.

  Celia Green

  Belief, Our Time

  "The Decline and Fall of Science". Book by Celia Green, 1976.

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• There are such people, unfortunates who have to be angry before they can feel alive. I had sometimes wondered if it were some old relic of pagan superstition, the fear of risking the jealousy and anger of the gods, that made such people afraid of even small happinesses. Or perhaps it was only that tragedy is more self-important than laughter.

  Mary Stewart

  Fear, Laughter, Anger

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• A genuine coincidence always means bad luck for me; it's my only superstition.

  Margery Allingham

  Mean, Luck, Coincidence

  Margery Allingham (2014). “Police at the Funeral”, p.68, Random House

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• The best road to correct reasoning is by physical science; the way to trace effects to causes is through physical science; the only corrective, therefore, of superstition is physical science.

  Frances Wright

  Science, Way, Causes

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures”, p.66

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• I have a superstition that if I talk about plot, it's like letting sand out of a hole in the bottom of a bag.

  Shirley Hazzard

  Plot, Bags, Sand

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• Repentance, however difficult to be practiced, is, if it be explained without superstition, easily understood. Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the conviction that it has offended God.

  Samuel Johnson

  Practice, Conviction, Repentance

  Samuel Johnson (1851). “The beauties of Johnson: choice selections from his works”, p.143

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• Nothing in all the world is so nonsensical and contradictory, save mortals, that is, who live in the grip of the superstitions of the past.

  Anne Rice

  Past, World, Nonsensical

  Anne Rice (2011). “The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned”, p.690, Ballantine Books

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• That's the one thing a politician mustn't have - political opinions or principles. He can have prejudices - indeed he must have prejudices and share all the popular political superstitions of the moment as ardently as he can. But he must not have principles. He must never let the people suspect that they cannot eat their cake and have it. He must promise them a defense program and a higher standard of living. He must never use that dreadful little word or.

  Helen McCloy

  Political Opinions, Cake, People

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• Everywhere the tendency has been to separate religion from morality, to set them in opposition even. But a religion without morality is a superstition and a curse; and anything like an adequate and complete morality without religion is impossible. The only salvation for man is in the union of the two as Christianity unites them.

  Mark Hopkins

  Men, Two, Adequate

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• You know, Christianity has its own superstition anyway: Why you turn three times, what this saint means, why you pray to the patron saint of lost causes, why you go this way or that way.

  Ciaran Hinds

  Mean, Saint, Three

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• That the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.

  David Hume

  Enthusiasm, Corruption, Produce

  David Hume, Knud Haakonssen (1994). “Hume: Political Essays”, p.46, Cambridge University Press

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• Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom.

  David Hume

  Philosophy, Air, Giving

  David Hume (1854). “The Philosophical Works of David Hume: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Pub. by the Author”, p.9

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• The grotesque prudishness and archness with which garlic is treated in [England] has led to the superstition that rubbing the bowl with it before putting the salad in gives sufficient flavor. It rather depends whether you are going to eat the bowl or the salad.

  Elizabeth David

  Giving, Cooking, Flavor

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• Another great illusion that woman must ... destroy . .. is the impurity of sex, the realisation in defiance of superstition that there is nothing impure in sex - except in the mental attitude toward it.

  Mina Loy

  Sex, Attitude, Illusion

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• It is through the perversion of the religious element in woman, playing upon her hopes and fears of the future, holding this life with all its high duties in abeyance to that which is to come, that she and the children she has trained have been so completely subjugated by priestcraft and superstition.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Religious, Children, Atheism

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1993). “The Woman's Bible”, p.22, UPNE

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• I can say that the happiest period of my life has been since I emerged from the shadows and superstitions of the old theologies, relieved from all gloomy apprehensions of the future, satisfied that as my labors and capacities were limited to this sphere of action, I was responsible for nothing beyond my horizon, as I could neither understand nor change the condition of the unknown world. Giving ourselves, then, no trouble about the future, let us make the most of the present, and fill up our lives with earnest work here.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Unknown Worlds, Giving, Shadow

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• Our [Virginia's] act for freedom of religion is extremely applauded. The Ambassadors and ministers of the several nations of Europe resident at this court have asked me copies of it to send to their sovereigns, and it is inserted at full length in several books now in the press; among others, in the new Encyclopédie. I think it will produce considerable good even in those countries where ignorance, superstition, poverty and oppression of body and mind in every form, are so firmly settled on the mass of the people, that their redemption from them can never be hoped.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Book, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson (1830). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.44

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• It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism.

  Denis Diderot

  Ignorance, Government, People

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• Superstition belongs to the essence of mankind and takes refuge, when one thinks one has suppressed it completely, in the strangest nooks and crannies; once it is safely ensconced there, it suddenly reappears.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Thinking, Essence, Mankind

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