Superstitions Quotes - Page 6

• Underneath all civilization, ancient or modern, moved and still moves a sea of magic, superstition, and sorcery. Perhaps they will remain when the works of our reason have passed away.

  Will Durant

  Moving, Sea, Civilization

  Will Durant (2011). “Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization”, p.335, Simon and Schuster

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• We may be living in the twentieth century, in resplendent sophistication. But deep down, most of us find ourselves still in the Stone Age of superstition.

  Helen Hayes

  Age, May, Stones

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• The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me - the raving of insanity, superstition gone to seed! I want no part of such a God.

  Luther Burbank

  God, Ideas, People

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• I think we cannot too strongly attack superstition, which is the disturber of society; nor too highly respect genuine religion, which is the support of it.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Thinking, Support, Genuine

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• Evolution doesn't care whether you believe in it or not, no more than gravity does. I want to rekindle excitement over what we've achieved as a species with the space program. We can't afford to regress back to the days of superstition.

  Seth MacFarlane

  Believe, Space, Doe

  "Seth MacFarlane on hosting the Oscars, being hated by 'South Park'". Interview with Jonah Weiner, www.cnn.com. December 11, 2012.

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• Popular psychology is a mass of cant, of slush and of superstition worthy of the most flourishing days of the medicine man.

  John Dewey

  Men, Medicine, Psychology

  The Public and Its Problems Ch. 5

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• Superstition is rooted in a much deeper and more sensitive layer of the psyche than skepticism.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Layers, Sensitive, Skepticism

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• The nations were awakened from the sleep of death, as the words of eternal life flowed from the Apostles' lips, - the temples of superstition were shut or destroyed, and churches were planted in every part of the civilized world.

  John Strachan

  Sleep, Church, World

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• In human life, you will find players of religion until the knowledge and proficiency in religion will be cleansed from all superstitions, and will be purified and perfected by the enlightenment of real science.

  Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

  Real, Player, Enlightenment

  "Atatürk'ten Düşünceler" by E. Z. Karal, (p. 59), 1969.

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• Our civilization ... is not devaluing its awareness of the unknowable; nor is it deifying it. It is the first civilization that has severed it from religion and superstition. In order to question it.

  Andre Malraux

  Order, Civilization, Firsts

  "Picasso's Mask". Book by Andre Malraux, 1976.

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• The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

  Cyril Connolly

  Civilization, Luxury, Goal

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• Superstition would seem to be simply cowardice in regard to the supernatural.

  Theophrastus

  Cowardice, Regard, Seems

  Theophrastus (1870). “Θεοφραστου Χαρακτηρες”, p.163

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• As long as superstition and ignorance prevail, humanity will fall short of eradicating war, poverty, and hunger.

  Jacque Fresco

  War, Fall, Ignorance

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• Science built the Academy, superstition the Inquisition.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Academy, Built, Inquisition

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1898). “Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll: Including His Letters on the Chinese God--Is Suicide a Sin?--The Right to One's Life--etc. Etc. Etc”

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• Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Progress, World, Enlightening

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.310, Library of Alexandria

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• Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Common Sense, Epithet, Blasphemy

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.1217, Library of Alexandria

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• I don't believe in superstitions. I just do certain things because I'm scared in case something will happen if I don't do them

  Michael Owen

  Believe, Scared, Cases

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• I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith. They feel no obligation to understand what they believe. They may even wish not to have their beliefs disturbed by thought.

  Mortimer Adler

  Religious, Believe, Intellectual

  "A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror: Further Autobiographical Reflections of a Philosopher at Large".

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• Superstition changes a man to a beast, fanaticism makes him a wild beast, and despotism a beast of burden.

  Jean-Francois de La Harpe

  Men, Beast, Burden

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• Many of the tribal reservations today remain mired in poverty and alcoholism because many native [sic] Americans continue to cling to the darkness of indigenous superstition instead of coming into the light of Christianity and assimilating into Christian culture.

  Bryan Fischer

  Christian, Light, Darkness

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• The best society, the best human existence, arrives when humans most closely determine the truth, and act on the truth, and separate it from superstition, falsity, or misinformation. And there is no better system for determining the truth than free speech: Testing the validity of an idea in the waters of public discussion and debate.

  Dave Rodgers

  Truth, Ideas, Water

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• Anarchism is the abolition of exploitation and oppression of man by man, that is, the abolition of private property and government; Anarchism is the destruction of misery, of superstitions, of hatred. Therefore, every blow given to the institutions of private property and to the government, every exaltation of the conscience of man, every disruption of the present conditions, every lie unmasked, every part of human activity taken away from the control of the authorities, every augmentation of the spirit of solidarity and initiative, is a step towards Anarchism.

  Errico Malatesta

  Lying, Taken, Blow

  Errico Malatesta (2014). “The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader”, p.272, AK Press

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• It has become obligatory to fulfil a function which shall in some way be regarded as useful to the masses...Even an articulated mass always tends to become unspiritual and inhuman. It is life without existence, superstition without faith. It may stamp all flat; it is disinclined to tolerate independence and greatness, but prone to constrain people to become as automatic as ants.

  Karl Jaspers

  Greatness, People, Independence

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• Science is history arranged according to the superstition and taste of the moment. The vocabulary of scholars has no wit, no salt. These heavy tomes have no soul, they are filled with distress.

  Blaise Cendrars

  Vocabulary, Soul, Taste

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• It is only in times of social dissolution, as in the last age of the small Semitic states, when men and their gods were alike powerless before the advance of the Assyrians, that magical superstitions based on mere terror, or rites designed to conciliate alien gods, invade the sphere of tribal or national religion. In better times the religion of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that savage terror may dictate to the individual.

  William Robertson Smith

  Men, Age, May

  William Robertson Smith (1889). “Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: First Series. The Fundamental Institutions”

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