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Superstition Quotes

You don’t have to be a believer in a lot of superstition and nonsense - there’s a difference between...

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The idea of original sin--of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no altern...

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He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. In Alphonso's Clericalis Disciplina a serpent w...

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War is a kind of superstition, the pageantry of arms and badges corrupts the imagination of men.

It is one of the greatest Curses visited upon Mankind, he told me, that they shall fear where no Fea...

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The pens sharpen – Islamophobia! No such thing. Primitive Middle Eastern religions (and most others)...

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Those distinct substances, which concretes generally either afford, or are made up of, may, without ...

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...people don't think in chu

Picture of Robert Noyce
Robert NoyceThe Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley

Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to...

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Not one of us, even after last night, can say the word "ghost" without a littleinvoluntary smile. No...

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Not one of us, even after last night, can say the word "ghost" without a littleinvoluntary smile. No...

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Not one of us, even after last night, can say the word "ghost" without a littleinvoluntary smile. No...

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Not one of us, even after last night, can say the word "ghost" without a littleinvoluntary smile. No...

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It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer. But it was also natura...

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There are those whose views about religion are not very different from my own, but who nevertheless ...

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Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master u...

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Many people do simply awful things out of sincere religious belief, not using religion as a cover th...

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I'm offended by the kind of smarmy religiosity that's all around us, perhaps more in America than in...

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You may substitute knowledge for superstition without satisfying the needs that drive people into su...

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Picture of Susan Neiman
Susan NeimanMoral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists

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

May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to...

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May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to...

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Perhaps our judgement of the purple woman was unfair. No doubt her theories concerning the "approach...

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The American people spend thousands of dollars to propagate the doctrines of the fall of man, the cr...

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All religions worthy of the name are now making great efforts to purify their doctrines and return t...

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I die adoring God loving my friends not hating my enemies and detesting superstition.

Wisdom must yield to superstition's rules,Who arms with bigot zeal the hand of fools.

Picture of Voltaire
VoltaireCandide and The Maid of Orleans

The Jews are an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the...

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The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning...

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[We need reforms] to make the Negro church a place where colored men and women of education and ener...

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I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly ref...

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W. E. B. Du BoisThe Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century

Magic begins in superstition, and ends in science. ... At every step the history of civilization tea...

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There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present. ...

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When I was fifteen, a companion and I, on a dare, went into the mound one day just at sunset. We saw...

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What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.[Lincoln's maxim and philosophy...

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Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

Picture of Adam Smith
Adam SmithThe Wealth of Nations

Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?

We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is...

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Picture of Alain de Botton
Alain de BottonReligion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion

Moreover, most people, assuming they had not altogether abandoned religious observances, or did not ...

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The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction...

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The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a...

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During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own ...

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You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. ....

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What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears.

To ride a bicycle is in itself some protection against superstitious fears, since the bicycle is the...

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When men reject reason, they have no means left for dealing with one another — except brute, physica...

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Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from...

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People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting b...

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Nothing forbids man to enjoy himself, save grim and gloomy superstition

Ever since Plato most philosophers have considered it part of their business to produce ‘proofs’ of ...

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It is a curious and painful fact that almost all the completely futile treatments that have been bel...

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Picture of Bertrand Russell
Bertrand RussellAn Outline of Intellectual Rubbish: A Hilarious Catalogue of Organized and Individual Stupidity

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is ...

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I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fi...

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Picture of Bertrand Russell
Bertrand RussellWhy I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who wou...

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Walpurgis Night, when, according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad - when th...

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Picture of Bram Stoker
Bram StokerDracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories

Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astounding universe, and it is sad to see so m...

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If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. ... Choose science.

Picture of Carl Sagan
Carl SaganThe Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, wh...

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Picture of Carl Sagan
Carl SaganThe Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by l...

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For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded ...

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By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none.

And how easy it is to recognize the revenant shapes that the old unchanging enemies—racism, leader w...

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British diplomats and Anglo-American types in Washington have a near-superstitious prohibition on ut...

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It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into diffic...

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The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Sup...

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The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Sup...

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Thus identified with astronomy, in proclaiming truths supposed to be hostile to Scripture, Geology h...

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David BrewsterMore Worlds Than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian

... science demands a terrible price - that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, w...

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Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly th...

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Picture of David Hume
David HumeLetters of David Hume 2 vols

My mother believed in all superstitions, plus she made some up.

The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief in lies that have been foisted upo...

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Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and f...

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It was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of ...

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Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which ma...

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The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss;...

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Picture of Francis Bacon
Francis BaconThe Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon

It was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of ...

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Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which ma...

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The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss;...

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Picture of Francis Bacon
Francis BaconThe Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon

It was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of ...

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Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which ma...

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The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss;...

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Picture of Francis Bacon (artist)
Francis Bacon (artist)The Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon

It was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of ...

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Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which ma...

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The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss;...

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Picture of Francis Bacon (artist)
Francis Bacon (artist)The Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon

e have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibl...

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Picture of Frederick Douglass
Frederick DouglassNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

A degree of culture, and assuredly a very high one, is attained when man rises above superstitions a...

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All that Delaura noticed, though, was the uproarious crowing of the roosters.'There are only six of ...

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I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but wi...

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The more pleasure a universe can yield, other things being equal, the more beneficent and generous i...

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Picture of George Santayana
George SantayanaThe Life of Reason: Five Volumes in One

If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

He knew clearly enough that his imagination was growing traitor to him, and yet at times it seemed t...

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Picture of H. G. Wells
H. G. WellsGreat Tales of Horror and the Supernatural

What I'd like to read is a scientific review, by a scientific psychologist--if any exists--of 'A Sci...

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Why is it that showers and even storms seem to come by chance, so that many people think it quite na...

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Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind those forms and usages, as it wer...

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People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don't have any idea what causes epilepsy. B...

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Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden o...

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Where is the world whose people don't prefer a comfortable, warm, and well-worn belief, however illo...

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Yes, I'm a materialist. I'm willing to be shown wrong, but that has not happened — yet. And I admit ...

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