#superstition

Standing at the window, reading the menu of Obediah's services, the Minotaur wishes he could believe in what she has to offer: a promise woven into deep lines of his palm, some turn of fate told by a card. But faith is a nebulous thing and charlatans a dime a dozen; it's always been that way. The Minotaur both envies and pities the devout. ↗

— Steven Sherrill

#psychics #superstition #faith

Most people who offer their help do it to make themselves feel better, not us. To be honest, I don't blame them. It's superstition: If you give assistance to the family in need... if you throw salt over your shoulder... if you don't step on the cracks, then maybe you'll be immune. Maybe you'll be able to convince yourself that this could never happen to you. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#help #precaution #superstition #family

They that are against superstition oftentimes run into it of the wrong side. If I wear all colors but black, then I am superstitious in not wearing black. ↗

— John Selden

#am #black #colors #i #i am

Nat Parson says it's the devil's mark." "Nat Parson's a gobshite." Maddy was torn between a natural feeling of sacrilege and a deep admiration of anyone who dared call a parson 'gobshite. ↗

— Joanne Harris

#superstition #nature

I tend to eat things in fours. I'll eat four nuts, four grapes, four chips at a time. I don't know why. It's not really a superstition. I don't think anything bad will happen if I don't, but three potato chips doesn't seem right. ↗

— Jimmy Wales

#bad #chips #eat #four #fours

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It's a battle you can't hope to win - it's a battle that's going to go on forever. It's part of the human condition. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#been #cause #condition #forever #go

A superstition which pretends to be scientific creates a much greater confusion of thought than one which contents itself with simple popular practices. ↗

— Johan Huizinga

#contents #creates #greater #itself #much

Although I myself don't go to church or synagogue, I do, whether it's superstition or whatever, pray every time I get on a plane. I just automatically do it. I say the same thing every time. ↗

— Barbara Walters

#automatically #church #every #every time #get

It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into difficulties, that it was 'a war without end.' I never saw the point of this plaintive objection. The war against superstition and the totalitarian mentality is an endless war. In protean forms, it is fought and refought in every country and every generation. In bin Ladenism we confront again the awful combination of the highly authoritarian personality with the chaotically nihilist and anarchic one. Temporary victories can be registered against this, but not permanent ones. As Bertold Brecht's character says over the corpse of the terrible Arturo Ui, the bitch that bore him is always in heat. But it is in this struggle that we develop the muscles and sinews that enable us to defend civilization, and the moral courage to name it as something worth fighting for. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#authoritarianism #bertold-brecht #islamism #nihilism #osama-bin-laden

Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other. ↗

— James F. Cooper

#close #each #ever #ignorance #mathematical