Superstitions Quotes - Page 5

• A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.

  Laurence J. Peter

  Cat, Dark, Men

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• The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.

  Francis Bacon

  Memories, Men, Roots

  Francis Bacon (1826). “The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban and Lord High Chancellor of England: Sylva sylvarum (century IX-X) Physiological remains. Medical remains. Medical receipts. Works moral: Colours of good and evil. Essays of counsels civil and moral. Theological works”, p.70

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• Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their invisible enemies.

  Edward Gibbon

  Wrath, Parent, Enemy

  Edward Gibbon, J. B. Bury (2012). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Edited in Seven Volumes with Introduction, Notes, Appendices, and Index”, p.298, Cambridge University Press

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• It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

  Voltaire

  Funny, Sarcastic, Mind

  'The Leningrad Notebooks' (c.1735-c.1750) in T. Besterman (ed.) 'Notebooks' (2nd ed., 1968) vol. 2, p. 455

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• Men are probably nearer the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Men, Gambling

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2300, Delphi Classics

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• The superstitions of today are the scientific facts of tomorrow.

  John L. Balderston

  Science, Today, Facts

  "Dracula". Play by John L. Balderston, 1924.

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• Piety is different from superstition. To carry piety to the extent of superstition is to destroy it. The heretics reproach us with this superstitious submission. It is doing what they reproach us with.

  Blaise Pascal

  Different, Submission, Piety

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• The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down." -The Judge

  Cormac McCarthy

  Believe, Men, Judging

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• Astrology is a sickness, not a science ... It is a tree under the shade of which all sorts of superstitions thrive.

  Maimonides

  Astrology, Tree, Shade

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• The worst of all superstitions may be that astrology is a superstition.

  Kedar Joshi

  Astrology, May, Worst

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• You must develop the habit of skepticism, not swallow every piece of superstition you are told by witch-doctors and professors.

  Chinua Achebe

  Witch Doctors, Pieces, Habit

  Chinua Achebe (1988). “Anthills of the Savannah”, Anchor

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• I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Ignorance, Latter, Chiefs

  Baruch Spinoza (2014). “Letters to Friend and Foe”, p.15, Open Road Media

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• The superstition in which we grew up, Though we may recognize it, does not lose Its power over us.-Not all are free Who make mock of their chains.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Doe, May, Grew Up

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• Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition.

  Carl Sagan

  Comfort, Cosmos, Fleeting

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.361, Ballantine Books

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• A great fear, when it is ill-managed, is the parent of superstition; but a discreet and well-guided fear produces religion.

  Jeremy Taylor

  Fear, Parent, Produce

  Jeremy Taylor, Charles Page Eden, Reginald Heber, Alexander Taylor (1856). “The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor ...: The rule and exercises of holy living and dying”, p.185

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• Superstition is not, as has been defined, an excess of religious feeling, but a misdirection of it, an exhausting of it on vanities of man's devising.

  Richard Whately

  Religious, Men, Vanity

  Richard Whately (1856). “Thoughts and Apophthegms: From the Writings of Archbishop Whateley”, p.59

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• If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science they are mere superstitions and imaginations.

  Abdu'l-Bahá

  Religious, Imagination, Belief

  "How Two Baha’i Women Integrate Science and Religion" by Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 7, 2014.

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• The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home.

  John Milton

  Home, Church, World

  John Milton (2016). “Areopagitica and Other Prose Works”, p.59, Courier Dover Publications

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• Thou oughtest to be nice, even to Superstition, in keeping thy Promises; and therefore thou shouldst be equally cautious in making them.

  Thomas Fuller

  Nice, Keeping Promises, Broken Promises

  "An Introduction to Prudence".

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• We live in a time of twin credulities: the hunger for the miraculous combined with a servile awe of science. The mating of the two gives us superstition plus scientism -- a Mongoloid metaphysic.

  Edward Abbey

  Two, Giving, Twins

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.13, RosettaBooks

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• To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing.

  Hypatia

  Truth Is, Terrible, Teach

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• A peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when be sees a camel.

  George Eliot

  Horse, Believe, Camels

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.45, Wordsworth Editions

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• I have endeavoured to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Religious, Mind, Atheism

  "The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible". Free Thought Magazine 14: 540, September 1896.

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• Superstition, like true love, needs time to grow and reflect upon itself.

  Stephen King

  Needs, Grows, Time Of Need

  Stephen King (1990). “The Stand”, Signet Book

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• Like it or not, we're still a primitive tribe ruled by fears, superstition and misinformation.

  Bill Maher

  Tribes, Primitive, Misinformation

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