Superstitions Quotes - Page 15

• Both Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa had a superstition, however, that he would have declared his passion, if he had not been cut short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking his constitution, and over-doing an attempt to set it right again by swilling Bath water.

  Charles Dickens

  Funny, Humorous, Drinking

  Charles Dickens (2016). “Charles Dickens Six Pack: Six Dickens Classics”, p.1249, Enhanced Media Publishing

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• A little superstition is a good thing to keep in one's bag of precautions.

  Gertrude Atherton

  Bags, Littles, Good Things

  Gertrude Atherton (0101). “Black Oxen”, p.264, Prabhat Prakashan

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• How surprisingly alive false ideas are! They even have their own evolution. At first they are highfalutin' 'truths,' then humdrum 'laws,' and finally superstitions.

  Nina Berberova

  Law, Ideas, Alive

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• Humanism is an approach to life which encourages ethical and fulfilling living on the basis of reason and humanity, and rejects superstition and religion. The most immediate impact of living as a Humanist is that we believe this life is all there is - so what we do and the choices we make really count.

  Stephen Fry

  Believe, Impact, Choices

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• Women, rouse yourselves! The tocsin of reason resounds through the whole universe: recognize your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudices, fanaticism, superstition and lies.

  Olympe de Gouges

  Powerful, Lying, Rights

  Olympe de Gouges (1989). “The Rights of Woman”

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• In the world order, if the nagual dominates and not the tonal, then we'll live in times of fear and superstition.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Order, World

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• Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Inspire, Mind, Deities

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• An atheist is more reclaimable than a papist, as ignorance is sooner cured than superstition.

  Laurence Sterne

  Atheist, Ignorance, Skepticism

  Laurence Sterne (1790). “The Works of Laurence Sterne: Complete in Eight Volumes”, p.146

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• I love moving water, I love ships, I love the sharp definition, the concentrated humanity, the sublime solitude of life at sea. The dangers of it only make present to us the peril inherent in all existence, which the stupid, ignorant, un-travelled land-worm never discovers; and the art of it, so mathematical, so exact, so rewarding to intelligence, appeals to courage and clears the mind of superstition, while filling it with humility and true religion.

  George Santayana

  Art, Stupid, Moving

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• Groundless superstition ill befits an army; valor is the only deity that rules in the warrior's breast.

  Silius Italicus

  Change, Warrior, Army

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• Superstitious." What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called "faith". But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition?

  Jostein Gaarder

  Friday, Astrology, People

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• Rather than bring the full force of our creativity and rationality to bear on the problems of ethics, social cohesion, and even spiritual experience, moderates merely ask that we relax our standard of adherence to ancient superstitions and taboos, while otherwise maintaining a belief system that was passed down to us from men and women whose lives were simply ravaged by their basic ignorance about the world.

  Sam Harris

  Spiritual, Creativity, Ignorance

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

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• One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its very heart. Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.

  Carl Sagan

  Heart, Exercise, Ideas

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.51, Ballantine Books

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• The finest thing under the sun and moon is the human soul. I marvel at the small miracles of kindness that pass between humans, I marvel at the growth of conscience, at the persistence of reason in the face of all superstition or despair. I marvel at human endurance.

  Anne Rice

  Kindness, Persistence, Moon

  Anne Rice (1999). “Pandora”, Arrow/Children's (a Division of Random House Group)

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• A new type of superstition has got hold of people's minds, the worship of the state.

  Ludwig von Mises

  People, Mind, Worship

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

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• I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Christian, Religious

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• Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas: first, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be said or sung in Latin or in English; and, secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and, consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Latin, Believe, Firsts

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• The Christ is a myth. The Holy Ghost Priestcraft overshadowed the harlot Superstition; this Christ was born; and the Joseph of humanity, beguiled by the Gabriel of credulity, was induced to support the family. But the soldiers of Reason have crucified the illegitimate impostor, he is dead; and the ignorant disciples and hysterical women who still linger about the cross should take his body down and bury it.

  John Remsburg

  Support, Soldier, Humanity

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• Julian sincerely abhorred the system of oriental despotism which Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of four score years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition prevented the execution of the design which Julian had frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a costly diadem; but he absolutely refused the title of Dominus or Lord, a word which was grown so familiar to the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its servile and humiliating origin.

  Edward Gibbon

  Years, History, Design

  Edward Gibbon, Francis Parkman, William H. Prescott, Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812”, p.648, Modern Library

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• Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty; as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery.

  David Hume

  Men, Liberty, Ambitious

  David Hume (1875). “Essays Moral, Political, and Literary”, p.149

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• The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

  David Hume

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Views

  'Four Dissertations' (1757) 'The Natural History of Religion' sect. 15

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• The crossroads of trade are the meeting place of ideas, the attrition ground of rival customs and beliefs; diversities beget conflict, comparison, thought; superstitions cancel one another, and reason begins.

  Will Durant

  Business, Ideas, Diversity

  Will Durant (2011). “The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization”, p.221, Simon and Schuster

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• They may be all comprehended under three heads - 1st, Superstition; 2d, Power; 3d, the common interests of society, and the common rights of man.

  Thomas Paine

  Men, Rights, Religion

  Thomas Paine (1830). “The Political Writings of Thomas Paine ...: Prospects on the Rubicon. Rights of man, part I. Rights of man, part II. Letter to the authors of the Republican. Letter to the Abbe Sieyes. Address to the addressers. Letters to Lord Onslow. Dissertation on the first principles of government. Speech delivered in the French National convention. Letter to Mr. Secretary Dundas. The decline and fall of the English system of finance. Letter to the people of France. Reasons for preserving the life of Louis”, p.74

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• ... woman's narrow and purist attitude toward life makes her a greater danger to liberty wherever she has political power. Man haslong overcome the superstitions that still engulf women.

  Emma Goldman

  Attitude, Men, Political

  Emma Goldman (2016). “Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926”, p.55, PM Press

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• ... the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart,is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.

  Emma Goldman

  Powerful, Drama, Heart

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.151, 谷月社

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