“A mother-in-law dies only when another devil is needed in hell.”

— Francois Rabelais

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Francois Rabelais 105

major French Renaissance writer 1494–1553

Joanne Greenberg book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Source: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

“Everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat

Source: Three Men in a Boat

“When you dance with the devil, it might as well be a devil who can give you your own corner of hell to rule.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bullet

Source: Bullet

“The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devils' party without knowing it.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Note to The Voice of the Devil
1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793)

“Needs must when the Devil drives.”

Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel

Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fourth Book (1548, 1552), Chapter 57.

“No devil, no hell. No hell, no atonement. No atonement, no preaching, no gospel.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Orthodoxy (1884)
Context: The church must not abandon its belief in devils. Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell. Throw away a belief in the devil, and most of the miracles of the New Testament become impossible, even if we admit the supernatural. If there is no devil, who was the original tempter in the garden of Eden? If there is no hell, from what are we saved; to what purpose is the atonement? Upon the obverse of the Christian shield is God, upon the reverse, the devil. No devil, no hell. No hell, no atonement. No atonement, no preaching, no gospel.