#superstition

This is the great object held out by this association; and the means of attaining it is illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason which will dispell the clouds of superstition and of prejudice. ↗

— Adam Weishaupt

#attaining #clouds #enlightening #great #held

When you consider the superstitions and the imaginings of the old Cornish country-folk up to my grandmother's day, how their lives were swaddled in them from the cradle to the grave, their daily actions in large part determined by them - so many things you would not think of doing, like starting a journey on a Friday, or looking at the moon through a pane of glass, or failing to wear something new on Whitsunday - their minds haunted by ghosts and fears, you have a fair idea of what the minds of these people in the sixteenth century were like. It was a life full of shadows that frightened them and dangers that might come home to them; how much more so in those days when their fears had the sanction, and even the corroboration, of the elect and the intelligent: when a uniform religion existed to enforce its lessons and draw the moral. However, no doubt it filled up life for them, made it more interesting and exciting, more mysterious and incalculable; it added a dimension to it, where the modern uneducated, rid of their fears and ghosts, are apt to find life empty and void of meaning. ↗

— A.L. Rowse

#psychology #superstition #home

We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is a God who has a hand in wishing to make us so. We no longer have to be brought into line by the threat of hell or the promise of paradise; we merely have to be reminded that it is we ourselves -- that is, the most mature and reasonable parts of us (seldom present in the midst of our crises and obsessions) -- who want to lead the sort of life which we once imagined supernatural beings demanded of us. An adequate evolution of morality from superstition to reason should mean recognizing ourselves as the authors of our own moral commandments. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#commandments #god #life #morality #morals

Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts. ↗

— Sheri S. Tepper

#curse #destiny #divine-intervention #fate #fortune

Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence. ↗

— Countess of Blessington

#confidence #fear #only #religion #superstition

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

— James F. Cooper

#close #each #ever #ignorance #mathematical

In better times the religion of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that savage terror may dictate to the individual. ↗

— William Robertson Smith

#common #dictate #foreign #individual #magical

The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences. ↗

— Elizabeth Cady Stanton

#bondage #influences #more #other #perpetuate

Superstition? Who can define the boundary line between the superstition of yesterday and the scientific fact of tomorrow? ↗

— Garrett Fort

#boundary #define #fact #line #scientific

A broken mirror is good luck if you want it to be. ↗

— Marty Rubin

#faith #perception #superstition #attitude