Quotes about demon

A collection of quotes on the topic of demon, likeness, use, doing.

Quotes about demon

Tennessee Williams photo

“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Source: Conversations with Tennessee Williams

Osamu Dazai photo
Hermann Göring photo
John Chrysostom photo

“Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Do you see that from drunkenness comes fornication, from fornication adultery, from adultery murder? Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you contemn the gift of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse, do you seek as though it were a blessing? Do you make the anteroom of birth the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the woman who is given to you for the procreation of offspring to perpetrate killing? That she may always be beautiful and lovable to her lovers, and that she may rake in more money, she does not refuse to do this, heaping fire on your head; and even if the crime is hers, you are the cause. Hence also arise idolatries. To look pretty many of these women use incantations, libations, philtres, potions, and innumerable other things. Yet after such turpitude, after murder, after idolatry, the matter still seems indifferent to many men–even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks, invocations of demons, incantations of the dead, daily wars, ceaseless battles, and unremitting contentions.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans [PG 60:626-27] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/10/contraception-early-church-teaching-william-klimon.html

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Variant: Be careful when you cast out your demons that you don’t throw away the best of yourself.

Marilyn Manson photo
Dimitris Lyacos photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Dan Brown photo
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Francis of Assisi photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“I'm awaiting a lover. I have to be rent and pulled apart and live according to the demons and the imagination in me. I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Emil M. Cioran photo
Justin Martyr photo

“The demons have always effected that all those who ever so little strived to live by logos and shun vice be hated.”

Justin Martyr (100–165) early Christian martyr

Source: Second Apology, in Readings in World Christian History (2013), p. 40

Edgar Allan Poe photo
Stefan Zweig photo
Anthony the Great photo
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Huldrych Zwingli photo

“Balthasar of Waldshit has fallen into prison here - a man not merely irreverent and unlearned, but even empty. Learn the sum of the matter. When he came to Zurich our Council fearing lest he should cause a commotion ordered him to be taken into custody. Since, however, he had once in freakishness of disposition and fatuity, lurked out in Waldshut against our Council, of which place he, by the gods, was a guardian [i. e., he has pastor there], until the stupid fellow disunited and destroyed everything, it was determined that I should discuss with him in a friendly manner the baptising of infants and Catabaptists, as he earnestly begged first from prison and afterwards from custody. I met the fellow and rendered him mute as a fish. The next day he recited a recantation in the presence of certain Councillors appointed for the purpose [which recantation when repeated to the Two Hundred it was ordered should be publicly made Therefore having started to write it in the city, he gave it to the Council with his own hand, with all its silliness, as he promised. At length he denied that he had changed his opinion, although he had done so before a Swiss tribunal, which with us is a capital offence, affirming that his signature had been extorted from him by terror, which was most untrue].
The council was so unwilling that force should be used on him that when the Emperor or Ferdinand twice asked that the fellow be given to him it refused the request. Indeed he was not taken prisoner that he might suffer the penalty of his boldness in the baptismal matter, but to prevent his causing in secret some confusion, a thing he delighted to do. Then he angered the Council; for there were present most upright Councillors who had witnessed his most explicit and unconstrained withdrawal, and had refused to hand to him over to the cruelty of the Emperor, helping themselves with my aid. The next day he was thrust back into prison and tortured. It is clear that the man had become a sport for demons, so he recanted not frankly as he had promised, nay he said that he entertained no other opinions than those taught by me, execrated the error and obstinacy of the Catabaptists, repeated this three times when stretched on the racks, and bewailed his misery and the wrath of God which in this affair was so unkind. Behold what wantonness! Than these men there is nothing more foolhardy, deceptive infamous - for I cannot tell you what they devise in Abtzell - and shameless. Tomorrow or next day the case will come up.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

Letter to Capito, January 1, 1526 (Staehelin, Briefe ausder Reformationseit, p. 20), ibid, p. 249-250

Emil M. Cioran photo
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Thomas Aquinas photo

“On the contrary, The demons are ever assailing us, according to 1 Peter 5:8: "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour." Much more therefore do the good angels ever guard us”

Summa Theologica (1265–1274)
Context: Whether the angel guardian ever forsakes a man?... It would seem that the angel guardian sometimes forsakes the man whom he is appointed to guard... On the contrary, The demons are ever assailing us, according to 1 Peter 5:8: "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour." Much more therefore do the good angels ever guard us... the guardianship of the angels is an effect of Divine providence in regard to man. Now it is evident that neither man, nor anything at all, is entirely withdrawn from the providence of God: for in as far as a thing participates being, so far is it subject to the providence that extends over all being.

I, q. 113, art. 6

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Marguerite Yourcenar photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Salman Rushdie photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“But you can vanquish the demons only when you yourself are convinced of your own worth.”

Adeline Yen Mah (1937) Author and physician

Source: Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter

Tess Gerritsen photo
Terry Pratchett photo
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C.G. Jung photo
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“The floating of the planets in the weightless air is due to the inner constitution of the globes, and the modernized drilling of the earth to exploit oil from within is a sort of disturbance by the modern demons and can result in a greatly harmful reaction to the floating condition of the earth.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 2, Chapter 7, verse 1, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/2/7/1
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science

Lawrence M. Krauss photo
Aron Ra photo
Jay-Z photo

“I’ve got demons in my past so I’ve got daughters on the way,
If the prophecy is correct then the child should have to pay,
For the sins of the father so I barter my tomorrows against my yesterday’s
In hopes that she’ll be okay”

Jay-Z (1969) American rapper, businessman, entrepreneur, record executive, songwriter, record producer and investor

"Beach Chair"
The Black Album (2003)

John Chrysostom photo
Edgar Allan Poe photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Barack Obama photo
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C.G. Jung photo
Hidetaka Miyazaki photo
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Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“The heaviest burden: “What, if some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!’ Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!’ If this thought were to gain possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “do you want this once more and innumerable times more?””

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?.
Sec. 341
The Gay Science (1882)

Aurelius Augustinus photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Edgar Guest photo
Edgar Allan Poe photo
Leonard Cohen photo

“They're lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle-class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"You Want It Darker"
You Want It Darker (2016)

Barack Obama photo
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“Now, in the Manu-samhita it is clearly stated that a woman should not be given freedom. That does not mean that women are to be kept as slaves, but they are like children. The demons have now neglected such injunctions, and they think that women should be given as much freedom as men.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972. Chapter 16, verse 7, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/bg/16/7
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women's Rights

Cassandra Clare photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Isaac of Nineveh photo
Thomas Paine photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Salman Rushdie photo

“Too many people had spent too long demonizing or totemizing me to listen seriously to what I had to say.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Address at Columbia University (1991)
Context: Too many people had spent too long demonizing or totemizing me to listen seriously to what I had to say. In the West, some "friends" turned against me, calling me by yet another set of insulting names. Now I was spineless, pathetic, debased; I had betrayed myself, my Cause; above all, I had betrayed them.
I also found myself up against the granite, heartless certainties of Actually Existing Islam, by which I mean the political and priestly power structure that presently dominates and stifles Muslim societies. Actually Existing Islam has failed to create a free society anywhere on Earth, and it wasn't about to let me, of all people, argue in favor of one.

Richard Wagner photo

“If gold here figures as the demon strangling manhood's innocence, our greatest poet shews at last the goblin's game of paper money. The Nibelung's fateful ring become a pocket-book, might well complete the eerie picture of the spectral world-controller.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Know Thyself (1881)
Context: Clever though be the many thoughts expressed by mouth or pen about the invention of money and its enormous value as a civiliser, against such praises should be set the curse to which it has always been doomed in song and legend. If gold here figures as the demon strangling manhood's innocence, our greatest poet shews at last the goblin's game of paper money. The Nibelung's fateful ring become a pocket-book, might well complete the eerie picture of the spectral world-controller. By the advocates of our Progressive Civilisation this rulership is indeed regarded as a spiritual, nay, a moral power; for vanished Faith is now replaced by "Credit," that fiction of our mutual honesty kept upright by the most elaborate safeguards against loss and trickery. What comes to pass beneath the benedictions of this Credit we now are witnessing, and seem inclined to lay all blame upon the Jews. They certainly are virtuosi in an art which we but bungle: only, the coinage of money out of nil was invented by our Civilisation itself; or if the Jews are blamable for that, it is because our entire civilisation is a barbaro-judaic medley, in nowise a Christian creation.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
Zinedine Zidane photo

“Nobody knows if Zidane is an angel or demon. He smiles like Saint Teresa and grimaces like a serial killer.”

Zinedine Zidane (1972) French association football player and manager

Jean-Louis Murat, 2004 http://www.theguardian.com/football/2004/apr/04/sport.features

Maila Nurmi photo

“A scar on the hand the hand might be quite continental,
But demons are a ghoul's best friend.”

Maila Nurmi (1922–2008) Finnish-American actress

[Vampira (Maila Nurmi)—Rare 1988 TV Interview, James Dean, 21 December 2016, Alan Eichler, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKIUxdgXsa8] (quote at 3:42)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Gabriele Amorth photo
Gabriele Amorth photo
Dan Brown photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“She was afraid you'd freak out? Start seeing demons in the White House?”

Jace to Clary, pg. 311
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Charlaine Harris photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“three out of four demons prefer barbeque sauce over hemoglobin”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

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Mario Vargas Llosa photo

“Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.”

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist
Richelle Mead photo

“How do you know if a demon is lying? His lips are moving.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

Nicholas Sparks photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Clive Barker photo
Joseph Campbell photo

“It's only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Comments on a passage in Where the Wild Things Are (1963) by Maurice Sendak, as quoted by Bill Moyers in "NOW with Bill Moyers", PBS (12 March 2004) http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/sendak.html
Source: The Hero With a Thousand Faces

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