Superstitions Quotes - Page 21

• Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present.

  Iain Banks

  Shapes, Reason

  "The State of the Art" by Iain Banks, Night Shade Books paperback edition, (p. 75), 1991.

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• Superstition is but the fear of belief.

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Belief

  Marguerite Countess of Blessington, Marguerite GARDINER (Countess of Blessington.) (1839). “Desultory Thoughts and Reflections”, p.28

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• It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascinationfor all educated Americans.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Travel, Egypt, Self

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.180, Harvard University Press

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• We are most unfair to God; we do not allow Him to sin.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Belief, Sin, Unfair

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• Youll almost encounter a superstition amongst musicians, people sort of go through strange rituals, what they need to do to write a song.

  Dar Williams

  Song, Writing, People

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• If we must play the theological game, let us never forget that it is a game. Religion, it seems to me, can survive only as a consciously accepted system of make-believe.

  Aldous Huxley

  Believe, Games, Play

  Aldous Huxley (1933). “Texts & pretexts: an anthology with commentaries”

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• Some ministers would make good martyrs: they are so dry they would burn well.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Dry, Belief, Ministers

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• That it is a solecism to begin a sentence with 'and' is a faintly lingering superstition. The OED gives examples ranging from the 10th to the 19th c.; the Bible is full of them.

  Ernest Gowers

  Giving, Example, Sentences

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• I've taken up the Bible again, somewhat in the spirit of W.C. Fields - looking for loopholes.

  David Niven

  Taken, Fields, Spirit

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• [In] the post-Enlightenment world, science [has] taken the place of magic, miracles, and superstition.

  Jonah Goldberg

  Taken, Miracle, Magic

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• How much luckier than all the rest of mankind are the astrologers who, if they tell one truth among a hundred lies, obtain so much credit that even their lies are believed.

  Francesco Guicciardini

  Lying, Credit, Belief

  Francesco Guicciardini (1949). “Ricordi”

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• If there be a God, I think he would like me to paint Africa British-Red as possible.

  Cecil Rhodes

  Thinking, If There Is A God, Red

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• I often think the doctrine of fasting in Lent and having meatless days as old-fashioned...it might be better to give up television.

  Michael Ramsey

  Giving Up, Thinking, Fasting

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• What nuns don't realize is that they look better in nun clothes than J.C. Penney pantsuits.

  Walker Percy

  Clothes, Looks, Belief

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lancelot: A Novel”, p.7, Open Road Media

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• The moral, then, is that familiar categories of behavior - marriage customs, food taboos, folk superstitions, and so on - certainly do vary across cultures and have to be learned, but the deeper mechanisms of mental computation that generate them may be universal and innate.

  Steven Pinker

  Culture, May, Moral

  Steven Pinker (2003). “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p.66, Penguin

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• [The monks'] credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history; and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science.

  Edward Gibbon

  Philosophy, Light, Mind

  Edward Gibbon (2000). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.560, Modern Library

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• The last struggles of a great superstition are very frequently the worst.

  Andrew Dickson White

  Struggle, Lasts, Worst

  Andrew Dickson White (2012). “A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom: From Creation to the Victory of Scientific and Literary Methods”, p.123, Transaction Publishers

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• When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.

  Mark Twain

  Numbers, People, Different

  Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 13, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

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• The average man is what his environment and his superstitions have made him; and their function is to make him an ass. He can't add up three or four new circumstances together and perceive what they mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of observing for himself; he has to get everything at second-hand. If what are miscalled the lower animals were as silly as man is, they would all perish from the earth in a year.

  Mark Twain

  Silly, Mean, Men

  Mark Twain (1925). “In defense of Harriet Shelley”

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• The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.

  Edward Gibbon

  Clouds, Study

  Edward Gibbon (1854). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.122

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• I think everybody gets caught up in superstitions. But I don't put much stock in them ... knock on wood.

  Jason Akermanis

  Thinking, Woods, Caught

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• Help me to change the world is an invitation to be authentic, to follow your heart, to be free of superstitions and lies. And I'm not asking you to try to change the world. Don't try: just do it.

  Miguel Angel Ruiz

  Lying, Heart, Trying

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• To make sure that my blasphemy is thoroughly expressed, I hereby state my opinion that the notion of a god is a basic superstition, that there is no evidence for the existence of any god(s), that devils, demons, angels and saints are myths, that there is no life after death, heaven nor hell, that the Pope is a dangerous, bigoted, medieval dinosaur, and that the Holy Ghost is a comic-book character worthy of laughter and derision.

  James Randi

  Laughter, Book, Character

  Skeptic Magazine, Volume 3, No. 4, 1995.

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• Clutching our crystals and religiously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in steep decline, unable to distinguish between what's true and what feels good, we slide, almost without noticing, into superstition and darkness.

  Carl Sagan

  Feel Good, Darkness, Crystals

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• The beauty of science hugely outranks the charms of superstition.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Charm

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