Quotes About Superstition

A friend once suggested that I paint my own blue boat and name her Thirteen Whistling Pigs. I might not be as superstitious as some, but I'm not crazy.

I've gotten a little superstitious about listening to music when I write. Once a story is going somewhere, I keep listening to the same music whenever I work on that story. It seems to help me keep in voice, and alternatively, if I need to make some kind of dramatic shift, I'll go and put on something different to shake myself awake.

Individually, the experience of most people was of accelerating impotence and incomprehension. They lived in a world of superstition. They relied on voodoo - charms, fetishes, and crystal balls whose caprices they were helpless to govern, yet without which the conduct of daily life came to a standstill. Faith that the computer would switch on one more time and do as it was asked had more a religious than a rational cast. When the screen went black, the gods were angry.

Behind innocence there gathers a clotted mass of superstition, of twisted and misdirected impulse; clandestine flirtation, fads, and ragtime fill the unventilated mind.

Let this circumstance of our constitution therefore be directed to this noble purpose, and then all the objections urged against it by jealous tyranny and affrighted superstition will vanish.

Now, I'm not superstitious, mind, but why take unnecessary chances? Life will give you plenty of necessary ones on its own.

There was no God, no Holy Trinity, no devils, ghosts, or ghouls rising from graves; there was no Death flying everywhere in search of new sinners to snare. These were all tales for ignorant people who did not understand the natural order of the world, did not believe in their own powers, and therefore had to take refuge in their belief in some God.

It was also believed that sharing fire, especially borrowing it, could only result in misfortune. After all, those who borrow fire on this earth might have to return it in hell.

Superstition moulds nature into an arbitrary semblance of the supernatural, and then bows down to the work of its own hands.

The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last one, even if it's just a few notes in a file. I dread not having work in progress.

If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.

Don't be so superstitious.

Be careful what you do,Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,And all of the otherGods of the Congo,Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.

Actors are superstitious about beggars, perhaps because we're largely in the same line.

Most of the masses still believe in magic, you know. Spells. Potions. It's a big business, I am told.

Whenever I drive under a yellow light, I always kiss my finger and tap it on the roof of the car. And I do that when I get onto a plane as well!

I swear my car won't run unless I'm picking my nose: At least, I'm that superstitious about it, so I don't want to take any chances.

Washing your car and polishing it all up is a never failing sign of rain.

The English were indeed noted for their superstitious credulity as well as their piety;

Una de las grandes maldiciones del género humano es la de temer cuando no hay nada que temer, contestó. Este ánimo supersticioso y amigo de los presagios desarma los corazones de los hombres, ablanda su coraje y hace que ellos mismos atraigan las desgracias sobre sus cabezas.

In the countryside, traditional parents avoid flattery, and the mother's responses were automatic—it was like knocking her knee with a rubber hammer. She didn't want to spoil the child, but there was also the Chinese superstition that pride attracts misfortune.

There is hope in such a superstition; there is the illusion of control.

Both very liberal and very conservative Protestants are deeply threatened by Catholicism. For the liberals, "the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic", as Fr. Rutler gibes. And for many fundamentalists, Catholics are pagans, not even Christians: Church-worshipers, Pope-worshipers, Mary-worshipers, saint-worshipers, superstition-worshipers, sacrament-worshipers, idol-worshipers, and works-worshipers.

When life has lost its meaning, a pilgrim will risk everything to get back in touch with life. This is why relics, such as a tooth of the Buddha, the dried blood of Christ, or a Shakespeare folio, are objects that must be touched as an integral part of the pilgrimage. This is what the risk is for, the confirmation that the mystery exists at all in a modern world seemingly determined to undermine the sacred as mere superstition.