Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Superstitions are, for the most part, but the shadows of great truths.
—Tryon Edwards (1809–94) American Theologian, Author
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 (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me.
—Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923) French Actress
Superstition is a senseless fear of God; religion the intelligent and pious worship of the deity.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Liberal minds are open to conviction. Liberal doctrines are capable of improvement. There are proselytes from atheism; but none from superstition.
—Junius Unidentified English Writer
The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable.
—Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British Novelist, Poet
To make our idea of morality center on forbidden acts is to defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men a secret element of gusto.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The master of superstition is the people, and in all superstition wise men follow fools.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
It is of such stuff that superstitions are commonly made; an intense feeling about ourselves which makes the evening star shine at us with a threat, and the blessing of a beggar encourage us. And superstitions carry consequences which often verify their hope or their foreboding.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn’t the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
Superstition is the poetry of life. It is inherent in man’s nature; and when we think it is wholly eradicated, it takes refuge in the strangest holes and corners, whence it peeps out all at once, as soon as it can do it with safety.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The child, taught to believe any occurrence a good or evil omen, or any day of the week lucky, hath a wide in road made upon the soundness of his understanding.
—Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English Hymn writer
It is bad luck to fall out of a thirteenth story window on Friday.
—U.S. Proverb
As it addeth deformity to an ape to be so like a man, so the similitude of superstition to religion makes it the more deformed.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Weakness, fear, melancholy, together with ignorance, are the true sources of superstition. Hope, pride, presumption, a warm indignation, together with ignorance, are the true sources of enthusiasm.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational—but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?
—Judith Viorst (b.1931) American Author, Poet, Journalist
Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols—it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Superstition renders a man a fool, and scepticism makes him mad.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
There is in superstition a senseless fear of God.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.
—Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American Baseball Legend
Superstition always inspires bitterness; religion, grandeur of mind.—The superstitious man raises beings inferior to himself to deities.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
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