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Superstition Quotes

Browse 331 quotes about Superstition.

Superstition Quotes

“If you pick up a stone on the beach and put it in your pocket, and the very next day something good happens to you, you may start having the belief that that stone is lucky for you. So, you hold on to it as a lucky charm. Now this is completely acceptable self-preservation mechanism, but when fraudsters start selling such stones to the meek and vulnerable, that is not only unacceptable, but downright criminal.”

ReasonBrainy QuotesReasoningMysticismAstrologySuperstitionRational ThinkingRationalismPrejudicesGemstones
Book:Aşkanjali: The Sufi Sermon
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“There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous [founding nations upon superstition]; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history... [T]he detail of the formation of the American governments... may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven... it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses... Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. [A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America, 1787]”

ReasonGovernmentAmericaNatureHistoryRightsMysteryMankindAuthorityEnlightenmentConstitutionFoundationSensesGodsSuperstitionRights Of ManFounding Father
Book:The Political Writings of John Adams
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“It was about that time [415 BCE] that the poet Diagoras of Melos was proscribed for atheism, he having declared that the non-punishment of a certain act of iniquity proved that there were no gods. It has been surmised, with some reason, that the iniquity in question was the slaughter of the Melians by the Athenians in 416 BCE, and the Athenian resentment in that case was personal and political rather than religious. For some time after 415 the Athenian courts made strenuous efforts to punish every discoverable case of impiety; and parodies of the Eleusinian mysteries were alleged against Alcibiades and others. Diagoras, who was further charged with divulging the Eleusinian and other mysteries, and with making firewood of an image of Herakles, telling the god thus to perform his thirteenth labour by cooking turnips, became thenceforth one of the proverbial atheists of the ancient world, and a reward of a silver talent was offered for killing him, and of two talents for his capture alive; despite which he seems to have escaped.”

ReasonAtheismPoetGodsDeath PenaltySuperstitionFreethoughtAtheniansHerculesHeraklesAlcibiadesEleusinianDiagorasDiagoras Of MelosImpiety
Book:A Short History Of Freethought: Ancient And Modern
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“Thus identified with astronomy, in proclaiming truths supposed to be hostile to Scripture, Geology has been denounced as the enemy of religion. The twin sisters of terrestrial and celestial physics have thus been joint-heirs of intolerance and persecution—unresisting victims in the crusade which ignorance and fanaticism are ever waging against science. When great truths are driven to make an appeal to reason, knowledge becomes criminal, and philosophers martyrs. Truth, however, like all moral powers, can neither be checked nor extinguished. When compressed, it but reacts the more. It crushes where it cannot expand—it burns where it is not allowed to shine. Human when originally divulged, it becomes divine when finally established. At first, the breath of a rage—at last it is the edict of a god. Endowed with such vital energy, astronomical truth has cut its way through the thick darkness of superstitious times, and, cheered by its conquests, Geology will find the same open path when it has triumphed over the less formidable obstacles of a civilized age.”

ReasonTruthScienceReligionKnowledgeIgnoranceCivilizationPhysicsAstronomyScriptureTriumphIntolerancePersecutionConquestScience And ReligionFanaticismSuperstitionGeologyCriminalScience Vs ReligionPhilosophersMartyrs
Book:More Worlds Than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian
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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 that the reason I'm unable to accept the claims of psychic, occult, and/or supernatural wonders is because I'm locked into a world-view that demands evidence rather than blind faith, a view that insists upon the replication of all experiments — particularly those that appear to show violations of a rational world — and a view which requires open examination of the methods used to carry out those experiments.”

ReasonScienceAtheismEvidenceParanormalMaterialismSuperstitionNaturalismScientific MethodExperiment
Author:James Randi
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“So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: and whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.”

ReasonExperienceContraryIrrationalSuperstition
Book:Of Miracles
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“The system that aims at educating our boys and girls in the same manner as in the circus where the trainer teaches the lion to sit on a stool, has not understood the true meaning of education itself. Instead of being like a circus where the trainer uses his stick to make animals do stunts to serve the interest of the audience, the system of education should be like an Orchestra where the conductor waves his stick to orchestrate the music already within the musicians’ heart in the most beautiful manner. The teacher should be like the conductor in the orchestra, not the trainer in the circus.”

InspirationalPhilosophyWisdomLeadershipFreedomEducationKnowledgeLearningStudyTeacherStudentsRacismPrejudiceParentingBrainy QuotesIntellectParentsWise SayingsEducational PhilosophyTeachersKnowledge QuotesSuperstitionEducation SystemEducational QuotesPrejudicesKnowledge WisdomParenting ChildrenStudyingEducation ReformKnowledge TeachingIntellectual Capacity
Book:The Education Decree
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“If education were the same as information, the encyclopedias would be the greatest sages in the world.”

InspirationalPhilosophyWisdomLeadershipFreedomEducationKnowledgeLearningStudyTeacherStudentsRacismPrejudiceParentingBrainy QuotesIntellectParentsWise SayingsEducational PhilosophyTeachersKnowledge QuotesSuperstitionEducation SystemEducational QuotesPrejudicesKnowledge WisdomParenting ChildrenStudyingEducation ReformKnowledge TeachingIntellectual Capacity
Book:The Education Decree
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“The point is, education in its truest form, is the foundation of all human endeavors. It is the most noble of all the civilized elements of human consciousness. Education enables the humans to achieve their fullest mental and physical potential in both personal and social life. The ability of being educated is what distinguishes humans from animals. You can teach a cockatoo to repeat a bunch of vocabularies, but you cannot teach it to construct a space shuttle and go to the moon.”

InspirationalPhilosophyWisdomLeadershipFreedomEducationKnowledgeLearningStudyTeacherStudentsRacismPrejudiceParentingBrainy QuotesIntellectParentsWise SayingsEducational PhilosophyTeachersKnowledge QuotesSuperstitionEducation SystemEducational QuotesPrejudicesKnowledge WisdomParenting ChildrenStudyingEducation ReformKnowledge TeachingIntellectual Capacity
Book:The Education Decree
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“Education enables the humans to achieve their fullest mental and physical potential in both personal and social life.”

InspirationalPhilosophyWisdomLeadershipFreedomEducationKnowledgeLearningStudyTeacherStudentsRacismPrejudiceParentingBrainy QuotesIntellectParentsWise SayingsEducational PhilosophyTeachersKnowledge QuotesSuperstitionEducation SystemEducational QuotesPrejudicesKnowledge WisdomParenting ChildrenStudyingEducation ReformKnowledge TeachingIntellectual Capacity
Book:The Education Decree
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“Instead of being like a circus where the trainer uses his stick to make animals do stunts to serve the interest of the audience, the system of education should be like an Orchestra where the conductor waves his stick to orchestrate the music already within the musicians’ heart in the most beautiful manner. The teacher should be like the conductor in the orchestra, not the trainer in the circus.”

InspirationalPhilosophyWisdomLeadershipFreedomEducationKnowledgeLearningStudyTeacherStudentsRacismPrejudiceParentingBrainy QuotesIntellectParentsWise SayingsEducational PhilosophyTeachersKnowledge QuotesSuperstitionEducation SystemEducational QuotesPrejudicesKnowledge WisdomParenting ChildrenStudyingEducation ReformKnowledge TeachingIntellectual Capacity
Book:The Education Decree
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“Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under which our Republic assumed its rank among the Nations; The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment... have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society. At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own. [Circular to the States, 8 June 1783 - Writings 26:484--89]”

MindUseGovernmentAmericaHappinessKnowledgeRightsMankindIgnoranceResearchFoundationFoundingSuperstitionPhilosophersGeorge WashingtonSagesFounding Father
Book:Writings
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“Possibility is everything that has ever happened. The purpose of science is to find out where the limits of possibility end. When we have achieved that — and we shall — there will be no more magic, no more superstition, there will just be what is. Once it was impossible that this globe we are on wasn't flat. It is not for science — and certainly not for medicine — to flatter our expectations of Nature. Quite the opposite.”

ScienceNatureMagicPossibilityLimitsHappeningsMedicineSuperstitionEverything
Book:How to Stop Time
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“May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately... These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. [Letter to Roger C. Weightman on the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, 24 June 1826. This was Jefferson's last letter]”

ReasonScienceHopeIgnoranceChainsSuperstitionFreedom Of OpinionAmerican IndependenceLight Of ScienceMonkish
Book:Letters of Thomas Jefferson
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“Rise of Science Denialism The problem is, in a world where some people (even in the USA, where someone like Donald Trump was allowed to rise to the level of a serious presidential candidate in 2016) have descended to such levels of ignorance that science itself is dismissed by leaders, political and religious as ‘an agenda’, and frightening numbers of people cling to ignorance and superstition because it suits their conservative anti-human rights views and objectives.”

PeopleReligiousNumbersConservativeObjectivesPresidentialUsaLeadersFrighteningSuperstitionLikeRiseTheToAndIsSomeoneSomeTheirAgendaCandidateItselfSuchDenialism
Book:The Pink Community - The Facts
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“Dead Men's Tale (The Sonnet) They say, time and tide wait for none, Lest the bird learns it can fly. The best way to control apes is, To make them feel guilty for their light. They say, dead men tell no tale, and yet, We live our lives based on dead men's tale. It is okay to tell tales if it enhances sight, But not the kind that produces a walking hell. There is no divide when we are alive, Divisions exist only in kingdom of the dead. We are divided because we are dead, Come to life, and all divides will be deleted. Let us write a new tale with the spirit of life. Instead of celebrating death, let's celebrate each other's light.”

IgnoranceTraditionPrejudiceBigotryIntoleranceFundamentalismDiversity And InclusionSuperstitionRigidityFree Thinker
Book:Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission
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“Walk La Solo Ray (Sonnet 1006) Heart immeasurable is measure supreme, All other measures are caveman's dilemma. What measured minds deem as blasphemy, The immeasurable deem the end of myopia. You can inherit money, not mind, You can inherit cash, not character. When heritage makes mind petrified of mind, It is not heritage but a humanitarian disaster. So what, if the measured don't flock behind, Like they frolic on the beaches of frivolity! The sun above burns alone giving light to all, While the hyenas below never run out of company. Defy all old and new that desecrate the heart away. Hearken to no inherited fear, and walk, la solo ray.”

AloneOnenessIntoleranceAdvaitaDiversity And InclusionSuperstitionHumanist PoetryHuman Rights ViolationEquality No DiscriminationSpiritual Poem
Book:The Centurion Sermon: Mental Por El Mundo
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“Halkat Humans (The Sonnet) The history of human progress, Is the history of halkat* humans. Only the *loco make the earth civilized, By growing out of habits and traditions. Habits of yesterday are a gutter of biases, Hence they ain't the right habits of today. Let us not confuse them as modern identity, Let us not endorse them throwing reason away, Traditions born of bigotry and ignorance, Are hardly a measure of civilization. Measure of civilization is an expanding spirit, One that ever evolves discarding superstition. Turn your heart into a khichdi (fusion) of cultures, And behold o mighty human, as all division disappears.”

IgnoranceReasoningBigotryDiversity And InclusionSuperstitionSocial DevelopmentHuman Rights ActivistHumanist PoetryTraditionsLife Poem
Book:Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather
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“When I argue with devout statists, sometimes other voluntaryists tell me that I'm wasting my time, opining that a particular statist is never going to "get it." I often respond by saying that that's rarely my intention. Most of the time, when I argue with statists, the goal is for ME to learn more about the mentality and psychology of authoritarian indoctrination, and to hopefully help any SPECTATORS--whether statist or anarchist--learn something from the exchange. (Both of those goals can be achieved even if the statist continues to be a lunk-headed dupe.) Earlier today, a funny but possibly profound analogy came to mind about this: When I argue with "true believer" devout statists, I'm not being a doctor trying to heal an ailing patient; I'm being a coroner, doing an AUTOPSY on a patient who is already beyond any hope of saving, in the hopes that I, and anyone observing, may learn more about the "disease" of statism, in order to better understand the nature of it, and possibly prevent others from experiencing a similar fate.”

GovernmentReligionFreedomLibertyLibertarianAnarchyCoercionSuperstitionStatismVoluntaryismIrrationalityNon Aggression PrincipleAncapNap
Author:Larken Rose
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“Doubtless these desperate and dark struggles are to be called superstition when viewed by the side of true religion ; and it is easy enough to speak of them as superstition, when we have been informed of the gracious and joyful result in which the scheme of Divine Governance issues. But it is man’s truest and best religion, before the Gospel shines on him. If our race be in a fallen and depraved state, what ought our religion to be but anxiety and remorse till God comfort us? Surely to be in gloom— -to view ourselves with horror — to look about to the right hand and to the left for means of safety — to catch at everything, yet trust in nothing— to do all we can, and try to do more than all — and, after all, to wait in miserable suspense, naked and shivering, among the trees of the garden, for the hour of His coming, and meanwhile to fancy sounds of woe in every wind stirring the leaves about us — in a word, to be superstitious — is nature’s best offering, her most acceptable service, her most mature and enlarged wisdom, in the presence of a holy and offended God .”

LoveHopeFearSuperstitionRationalism
Book:Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford Between A.D. 1826 and 1843
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“I have no grudge against the lifeless corpses, but it's from the alive humans that my soldiers will come - soldiers capable of moving mountains - soldiers capable of breathing life into the barren desert - these unbending, unafraid, uncorrupted soldiers, bearing unbearable pain, will lift the world from the ashes of darkness up into the civilized dawn.”

Social JusticeHumanitarianService Of HumanityActivistSelflessSuperstitionReformerCivilized BeingsNaskareanTorchbearer
Book:Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society
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“Imagine a land where people are afraid of dragons. It is a reasonable fear: dragons possess a number of qualities that make being afraid of them a very commendable response. Things like their terrible size, their ability to spout fire, or to crack boulders into splinters with their massive talons. In fact, the only terrifying quality that dragons do not possess is that of existence. Now, the people of this land know about dragons because their leaders have warned them about them. They tell stories about cruel dragons with razor teeth and fiery breath. They recount legends of dragons hunting by night on silent wings. In short, the leaders make sure that the people believe in all the qualities of dragons, including that key quality of existence. And then they control the people — when they need to — with their fear of dragons. The people pay a dragon-slaying tax … everyone stays indoors after dark to avoid being snatched by swooping claws … and nobody ever strays out of bounds for fear of being eaten well and truly up. Perhaps somebody will wonder if dragons aren’t, after all, fictitious because — despite their size — nobody seems to have actually seen one. And so it is necessary from time to time to provide evidence: a burnt tree or two, a splintered rock, the mysterious absence of a villager. The population is controlled by the dragons in its collective mind. It’s contrived superstition, and it is possible because the people do not know enough about the way the world works to know that dragons do not exist.”

FaithExistenceIgnoranceControlDragonsSuperstition
Book:Book of Pages
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“Sometimes painfully lost people can teach us lessons that we didn't think we needed to know, or be reminded of---the more history changes, the more it stays the same.”

DeathFearJusticeBrokenEvolutionHatredMurderKillingIllnessMonstersBlindnessHeresySuperstitionSelf PityRaptureCrossTraditionsRitualsSalemNarrow MindednessFear Of UnknownJoan Of ArcWitch HuntsQuakersInmaturityBlind BeliefsCorporatenessNo OwnershipFear Of DifferenceFinding EvilNo CurePlease Forgive Them GodSearching For EvilVictomized
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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