“We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition.”
Nec vero superstitione tollenda religio tollitur.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman
Book II, chapter LXXII, sec. 148
De Divinatione – On Divination (44 BC)
“Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.”
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
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Edmund Burke270
Anglo-Irish statesman 1729–1797Related quotes
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) Swiss author
Ten Years' Exile (Dix années d'exil, written 1810–1813, posthumously published 1821), ch. 16
“Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men.”
Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon
Source: Flowers for Algernon (1966)
“It’s amazing what superstitions survive in fearful minds.”
Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer
Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 10, “Werteswandel” (p. 462)
Garrett Fort (1900–1945) screenwriter
Skeptical of Von Helsing's story of vampires
Dracula's Daughter (1936)
“Most kings and priests have been despotic, and all religions have been riddled with superstition.”
Aldous Huxley book Brave New World Revisited
Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 6 (pp. 52-53)
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher
Context: I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge; this, I take it, is the reason why Christians are distinguished from the rest of the world, not by faith, nor by charity, nor by the other fruits of the Holy Spirit, but solely by their opinions, inasmuch as they defend their cause, like everyone else, by miracles, that is by ignorance, which is the source of all malice; thus they turn a faith, which may be true, into superstition.
Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg , November (1675)