Quotes About Superstition

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.

I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge.

How could a superstition be true? Maybe "superstition" was what snuck into the gaps, the cracks, when you worked in a place with falling morale and depleted resources. Maybe superstition was what happened when your director went missing in action and your assistant director was still mourning the loss. Maybe that was when you fell back on spells and rituals, the reptile brain saying to the rest of you, "I'll take it from here. You've had your shot.

Break a leg, Gilly!" Kayla appears out of nowhere. "You're not supposed to say that, remember?" she whispers. "It offends the mermaids since they don't have legs.

They repented their manifold sins and then fled out to buy amulets and astrological signs against the scourge.

Therein lies the new hope—Justice, after eighteen hundred years of impotent Charity. Ah! in a thousand years from now, when Catholicism will be naught but a very ancient superstition of the past, how amazed men will be to think that their ancestors were able to endure that religion of torture and nihility!

No other superstition is so detrimental to growth, so enervating and paralyzing to the minds and hearts of the people, as the superstition of Morality

Le patriotisme […] est une superstition créée artificiellement et entretenue par tout un réseau de mensonges et de faussetés ; une superstition qui enlève à l'homme tout respect pour lui-même et toute dignité, et accroît son arrogance et son mépris. En effet, mépris, arrogance et égoïsme sont les trois éléments fondamentaux du patriotisme.

The pathetic superstition prevails that by knowing more and more facts one arrives at knowledge of reality. Hundreds of scattered and unrelated facts are dumped into the heads of students; their time and energy are taken up by learning more and more facts so that there is little left for thinking. To be sure, thinking without a knowledge of facts remains empty and fictitious; but "information" alone can be just as much of an obstacle to thinking as the lack of it.

At the base of her ankle is a deep, ugly scar she got when a car ran over her foot when she was six years old. That was in a small town in Bangladesh. Thus, even today, she hesitates superstitiously before crossing the road, and is painfully shy of walking distances. Her fears make her laughable. The scar is printed on her skin like a radiant star.

I'm superstitious... but not like wear the same underwear for two weeks superstitious.

I'm not superstitious about anything in my life - except for playoff hockey. I get really kind of sketchy and weird about it. I don't like talking about it. I don't like making predictions.

I don't believe I was jinxed or hexed by winning an Academy Award in my first picture, 'West Side Story.'

I'm not certain, but I have a little gypsy blood in me. And my mother always told me that her grandma could give someone the evil eye, and I'd better not cross her because she had some of that blood in her. Mother always believed that she could predict the future, and she had dreams that came true.

Cutting up fowl to predict the future is, if done honestly and with as little interpretation as possible, a kind of randomization. But chicken guts are hard to read and invite flights of fancy or corruption.

My mother reads tarot cards, actually, but I won't let her read mine.

I've always been drawn to the four-leaf clover. It's deeply significant to my sister and me, so much so that we both have had it tattooed on the inside of our wrists.

The renaissance movement and social reformers have taught us that superstitious beliefs and customs should be challenged and opposed.

I used to have an aunty who read tea leaves. She was incredibly accurate.

As late as 1711, Addison says cautiously: 'I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.

Henderson sighed. There was a time, he reflected, when the coming of this night meant something. A dark Europe, groaning in superstitious fear, dedicated this Eve to the grinning Unknown. A million doors had once been barred against the evil visitants, a million prayers mumbled, a million candles lit. There was something majestic about the idea, Henderson reflected.

The major obstacle to a religious renewal is the intellectual classes, who are highly influential and tend to view religion as primitive superstition. They believe that science has left atheism as the only respectable intellectual stance.

If man were relieved of all superstition, and all prejudice, and had replaced these with a keen sensitivity to his real environment, and moreover had achieved a level of communication so simplified that one syllable could express his every thought, then he would have achieved the level of intelligence already achieved by his dog.

Superstition...is what we call the miracles we don't approve of.