SUPERSTITION QUOTES III
quotations about superstition
Although superstitions might seem like holdovers from a different era, plenty of people believe in them today. According to a Gallup poll, nearly a quarter of Americans admitted to being somewhat superstitious, particularly when it came to traditions like knocking on wood and walking under a ladder. Following these traditions doesn't make you irrational; they're simply part of a culture that gets passed down through the generations. Besides, if there's anything universally beloved by humanity, it's coming up with rituals.
CLAIRE WARNER
"The Origins Of These Common Superstitions Are Absolutely Fascinating", Bustle, January 13, 2017
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. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.
CARL SAGAN
Cosmos
Superstitions are usually born from uncertainty of the future and a lack of control. It is easier to blame problems on an outside force than to deal with them head on.
ANNDREA OURS
"Black cats and superstition", The West Georgian, October 28, 2016
The quaking bystanders in a superstitious age would soon have slain an isolated bold man in the beginning of his innovations.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
One of the interesting things about superstitions is their seemingly arbitrary nature. Like, why 13? Why black cats? Why can't you walk under that ladder? It has no rational bearing. Yet somehow you feel like you're tempting fate, and the outcome, a bad outcome, that could befall you is going to be worse because you did something that people say you shouldn't do.
TOM GILOVICH
"Why Do You Believe in Superstitions? Here's What the Science Says", Reader's Digest, December 29, 2016
To think that now the 19th century is so far advanced, education and knowledge in the power of being acquired by every English-speaking race, and most foreign, superstition still exists, not only amongst the humbler and partially educated, but also amongst the upper classes, the learned, scientific and most erudite minds--is almost unaccountable to ordinary thinking people. The Roman Catholic believes in holy water, the Ritualist in the consecration of churches and burial grounds; the devout but humble Presbyterian in the necessity of a person who has viewed a corpse touching the same before leaving; and thousands of all creeds and classes in the possession of a child's caul as a charm against being drowned, if not other dangers, &c. & c. Now, the only consecration any church or other building can have is when persons assemble in it to worship God, not with outward signs or ceremonies, but with the heart; not according to the letter of the ritual, but in spirit and in truth. Superstition, then, is a clear proof of a weak mind and diluted Christianity. Do then, ye victims to superstition, forebodings of evil, and ye blind followers of the blind, think of Cromwell's grand speech to his army of Roundheads: "Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry." And think of the heroic and simple faith of the Pilgrim Fathers who launched out in their primitively-constructed vessel on the waves of the storm-tossed Atlantic to seek in an unknown world on the other side the freedom to worship that great unknown Being in whom they placed childlike and implicit faith, and at early dawn on the dreary ocean, and at the solemn vesper hour, made more solemn by their lone isolated position on the dreary desert of waters that surrounded them, they joined in one cry, one solemn resolve, which sounded clear above the roaring of the tempestuous waves, and said: Faith of our fathers, simple faith, we will be true to thee.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Superstition", Short Essays
might be superstition but some kind of somethin'
goin' on down there
it might be superstition but some kind of somethin'
goin' on down there
it's an old time tradition when they play their
drums at night in Congo Square
SONNY LANDRETH
"Congo Square Lyrics"
I wish to substitute humanity for superstition, the love of our fellow men, for the fear of God.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Six Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll on Six Sermons by the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
In doing practically only the things which He testifies He cares nothing about, superstition neglects those which He has ordained and said are pleasing to Him or even openly rejects them. Therefore those who (in order to worship God) establish religions which have their source in their own minds, only worship their own dreams.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
You will search the world over and not find a nonsuperstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach.
IRVIN D. YALOM
The Spinoza Problem
The master of superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Superstition", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect.
BERNARD BECKETT
Genesis
The most infallible mark of ignorance is superstition.
STANISLAUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
How weak our mind is; how quickly it is terrified and unbalanced as soon as we are confronted with a small, incomprehensible fact. Instead of dismissing the problem with: "We do not understand because we cannot find the cause," we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and supernatural powers.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
"The Horla"
The general root of superstition: namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.
FRANCIS BACON
The Collected Works of Francis Bacon
Men are probably nearer the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Journal, June 27, 1852
What if cards don't go my way?
And it's sure to spoil my day
But in voices loud and clear you say to me, "It's only superstition
It's only your imagination
It's only all of the things that you fear and the things from which you can't escape"
COLDPLAY
"Only Superstition", brothers & sisters
Hence, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence!
Thy chain of adamant can bind
That little world, the human mind,
And sink its noblest powers to impotence.
SAMUEL RODGERS
Ode to Superstition
Such people as can be prevailed upon to believe that their reason is depraved, may easily be led by the nose, and duped into superstition at the pleasure of those in whom they confide, and there remain from generation to generation: for when they throw by the law of reason the only one which God gave them to direct them in their speculations and duty, they are exposed to ignorant or insidious teachers, and also to their own irregular passions, and to the folly and enthusiasm of those about them, which nothing but reason can prevent or restrain.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
With their backs to the sunrise they worship the night.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
The Gods and Other Lectures