Quotes about devil
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Robert Southey photo

“At this good news, so great
The Devil's pleasure grew,
That, with a joyful swish, he rent
The hole where his tail came through.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

St. 31.
The Devil's Walk http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/shelley/devil/devil.rs1860.html (1799)

“You knew better than to pay mind to what people and the devil say.”

Disaster Tourism.
Catch For Us The Foxes (2004)

Adolf Hitler photo

“To put it quite clearly: we have an economic programme. Point No. 13 in that programme demands the nationalisation of all public companies, in other words socialisation, or what is known here as socialism. … the basic principle of my Party’s economic programme should be made perfectly clear and that is the principle of authority… the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the State should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State; it is his duty not to misuse his possessions to the detriment of the State or the interests of his fellow countrymen. That is the overriding point. The Third Reich will always retain the right to control property owners. If you say that the bourgeoisie is tearing its hair over the question of private property, that does not affect me in the least. Does the bourgeoisie expect some consideration from me?… Today’s bourgeoisie is rotten to the core; it has no ideals any more; all it wants to do is earn money and so it does me what damage it can. The bourgeois press does me damage too and would like to consign me and my movement to the devil.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Hitler's interview with Richard Breiting, 1931, published in Edouard Calic, ed., “First Interview with Hitler, 4 May 1931,” Secret Conversations with Hitler: The Two Newly-Discovered 1931 Interviews, New York: John Day Co., 1971, pp. 31-33. Also published under the title Unmasked: Two Confidential Interviews with Hitler in 1931, published by Chatto & Windus in 1971
1930s

Philippe Starck photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Ambrose Bierce photo
Molière photo

“What the devil was he doing in that galley?”

Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?
Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671), Act II, sc. vi

Edward Coke photo

“A witch is a person who hath conference with the Devil to consult with him or to do some act.”

Edward Coke (1552–1634) English lawyer and judge

Reported in Margaret Alice Murray, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology (2007) p. 18.
Attributed

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
Gordon R. Dickson photo
Macy Gray photo

“I saw a rainbow earlier today
Lately those rainbows be comin' round like everyday
Deep in the struggle I have found the beauty of me
God is watchin' and the Devil finally let me be
Here in this moment to myself”

Macy Gray (1967) American singer-songwriter and actress

"A Moment to Myself" (co-written with Jeremy Ruzumna, Miles Tackett. Mark Morales, and Damon Wimbley)
On How Life Is (1999)

Charles Brockden Brown photo

“Ruffian or devil, black as hell or bright as angels, thenceforth he was nothing to me.”

Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810) American novelist, historian and editor

Wieland; or, the Transformation (1798)

Chris Rock photo

“Black Santa Claus caused more tears than the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

From Everybody Hates Chris second season episode, "Everybody Hates Chris"
Miscellaneous

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“If not reason, then the devil.”

Crime and Punishment (1866)

Algernon Charles Swinburne photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Niels Henrik Abel photo
James Russell Lowell photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Samuel Butler photo

“The devil tempted Christ; yes, but it was Christ who tempted the devil to tempt him.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Further Extracts from the Note-Books of Samuel Butler http://books.google.com/books?id=zltaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+devil+tempted+Christ+yes+but+it+was+Christ+who+tempted+the+devil+to+tempt+him%22&pg=PA76#v=onepage, compiled and edited by A.T. Bartholomew (1934), p. 76

Elliott Smith photo

“You disappoint me,all you people raking in on the world.The devil's script sellsyou the heart of a blackbird.”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free.
Lyrics, From a Basement on the Hill (posthumous, 2004)

“And so it goes, it's the Devil I suppose
But it doesn't matter much to me.”

The Ghost.
A→B Life (2002)

Gerald of Wales photo

“Although he was completely illiterate, if he looked at a book which was incorrect, which contained some false statement, or which aimed at deceiving the reader, he immediately put his finger on the offending passage. If you asked him how he knew this, he said that a devil first pointed out the place with its finger…When he was harried beyond endurance by these unclean spirits, Saint John’s Gospel was placed on his lap, and then they all vanished immediately, flying away like so many birds. If the Gospel were afterwards removed and the History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth put there in its place, just to see what would happen, the demons would alight all over his body, and on the book, too, staying there longer than usual and being even more demanding.”
Librum quoque mendosum, et vel falso scriptum, vel falsum etiam in se continentem inspiciens, statim, licet illiteratus omnino fuisset, ad locum mendacii digitum ponebat. Interrogatus autem, qualiter hoc nosset, dicebat daemonem ad locum eundem digitum suum primo porrigere…Contigit aliquando, spiritibus immundis nimis eidem insultantibus, ut Evangelium Johannis ejus in gremio poneretur: qui statim tanquam aves evolantes, omnes penitus evanuerunt. Quo sublato postmodum, et Historia Britonum a galfrido Arthuro tractata, experiendi causa, loco ejusdem subrogata, non solum corpori ipsius toti, sed etiam libro superposito, longe solito crebrius et taediosius insederunt.

Gerald of Wales (1146) Medieval clergyman and historian

Book 1, chapter 5, pp. 117-18.
Itinerarium Cambriae (The Journey Through Wales) (1191)

Rudyard Kipling photo
Mike Milbury photo

“Screw the Rangers. Screw the Devils.”

Mike Milbury (1952) American ice hockey player

New York Magazine, The Mix, 2010-02-24 http://books.google.com/books?id=xOQCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=screw+the+devils+milbury&source=bl&ots=ydhoF36x3S&sig=qMaB_R2w_l0qKHznTEcLBAIR7m8&hl=en&ei=UsaFS56WGonRlAerrs2LDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBUQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=screw%20the%20devils%20milbury&f=false,
On Joining the New York Islanders

Derren Brown photo
Robert South photo

“Of covetousness, we may truly say that it makes' both the Alpha and Omega in the devil's alphabet, and that it is the first vice in corrupt nature which moves, and the last which dies.”

Robert South (1634–1716) English theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 167.

Mike Oldfield photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“By nature, we're Adam's children - not God's. Because of Adam's sin, his kids became sinners, and spiritually children of the devil.”

Jack T. Chick (1924–2016) Christian comics writer

Chick tracts, " Why Should I? http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1079/1079_01.asp" (2012)

William Blake photo

“The Goddess Fortune is the devils servant ready to Kiss any ones Arse.”

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

Inscription on Illustrations to Dante "No. 16: HELL Canto 7"
1810s

George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham photo

“What a Devil is the Plot good for, but to bring in fine things?”

George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628–1687) English statesman and poet

Bayes, Act III, sc. i
The Rehearsal (1671)

Ernst Bloch photo
John Heywood photo

“Hee must have a long spoone, shall eat with the devill.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part II, chapter 5.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Roger Ebert photo
Horatio Nelson photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Isn't this the prettiest little thing you've ever seen? It was over a year ago I held this belt high in the air after I fought for it for the first time in Dayton, Ohio against Samoa Joe and I proclaimed this belt the most important thing to me. Right now, in my hands, as of this day 6/18/05, THIS becomes the most important belt in the world! This belt in the hands of any other man is just a belt, but in my hands it becomes power. Just like this microphone in the hands of any of the boys in the back is just a microphone, but in the hands of a dangerous man like myself it becomes a pipe-bomb. These words that I speak spoken by anybody else are just words strung loosely together to form sentences. What I say I mean, and what I mean I say, and they become anthems! You see, if I could be afforded the time here a little bit of a story. There was once an old man, walking home from work. He was walking in the snow, and he stumbled upon a snake frozen in the ice. He took that snake, and he brought it home, and he took care of it, and he thawed it out, and he nursed it back to health. And as soon as that snake was well enough, it bit the old man. And as the old man lay there dying he asked the snake, 'Why? I took care of you. I loved you. I saved your life.' And that snake looked that man right in the eye and said, 'You stupid old man. I'm a snake.' The greatest thing the devil ever did was make you people believe he didn't exist… and you're looking at him right now! I AM THE DEVIL HIMSELF! And all of you stupid, mindless people fell for it! You all believed in the same make-believe superhero that the legendary Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat saw some year ago today. No, you see, you don't know anything. You followed me hook-line and sinker, all of you did, and I'm not mad at you… I just feel sorry for you. This belongs to me! Everything you see here belongs to me, and I did what I had to do to get my hands on this. Now I am the GREATEST PRO WRESTLER walkin' the Earth today! This is my stage, this is my theater, you are my puppets! When I pulled those marionette strings, and I moved your emotions, and I played with them, and honestly it's 'cause I get off on it. I hate each and every single one of you with a thousand burns and I will not stop… I will not stop until I prove that I am better than you, that I am better than Low Ki, that I am better than AJ Styles! I'm better than Samoa Joe. Ladies and gentlemen, the champ is here! You don't have to love it, but you better learn to accept it. 'Cause I'm taking this with me, and there's not a single person in that locker room that can stop me!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Ring of Honor, Death Before Dishonor III. June 18th, 2005.
This promo took place directly after Punk defeated Austin Aries for the ROH World Championship proceeding to turn the, at the time face, Punk heel. Directly after this promo Christopher Daniels made his first appearance in ROH in over a year to challenge for the belt. This promo also made reference to an old parable http://www.snopes.com/critters/malice/scorpion.htm about an animal doing an act of kindness to another creature that is venomous and being surprised when the animal injects the venom to the creature after the act of kindness who then proceeds to explain it is their nature to perform the act.
Ring of Honor

Jane Roberts photo
Rudyard Kipling photo

“We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: “It's clever, but is it Art?””

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

The Conundrum of the Workshops, Stanza 6.
Other works

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec photo

“I am quite incapable of doing them [making landscapes], even the shadow. My trees look like spinach and my sea like heaven knows what.... [the Mediterranean landscape was] the devil to paint, precisely because it is so beautiful.”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) French painter

young Lautrec comments his own paintings of the landscape, when he was c. 15 years old.
Source: 1879-1884, T-Lautrec, by Henri Perruchot, p. 46 - remark to his friend Etienne Devismes - in Nice, 1879

Robert Burns photo
Philip José Farmer photo

“Zeitgeist rides tonight, and the devil take the hindmost!”

Riders of the Purple Wage (1967)

Koenraad Elst photo
John Hirst photo
Kage Baker photo
Aron Ra photo
Miguel de Cervantes photo

“You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the 'versal world but what you can turn your hand to.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 11.

Doron Zeilberger photo
Erich von dem Bach photo

“Germany could not win this war because it was in league with the devil. This war would not have ended without revolution.”

Erich von dem Bach (1899–1972) German politician and SS functionary

To Leon Goldensohn (14 February 1946) from The Nuremberg Interviews (2004) by Leon Goldensohn and Robert Gellately

David Berg photo
André Weil photo

“God exists since mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exists since we cannot prove it.”

André Weil (1906–1998) French mathematician

As quoted in Mathematical Circles Adieu (Boston 1977) by H Eves

Terence Rattigan photo

“When you're between any kind of devil and the deep blue sea, the deep blue sea sometimes looks very inviting.”

Terence Rattigan (1911–1977) playwright, screenwriter

The Deep Blue Sea, Act I. (1952).

Ken Ham photo
Georgi Dimitrov photo
Robert Burton photo

“The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies.”

Section 4, member 1, subsection 3.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III

Ilana Mercer photo
Aleister Crowley photo

“My light! O my father the Devil! It hath made all things one, being perfect, even as doth the Darkness!”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: Magical Record of the Beast 666: The Diaries of Aleister Crowley 1914-1920 (1972), p. 266

H. G. Wells photo
Fritz Leiber photo
Thomas Szasz photo

“Like the devout theologian seeing the Devil lurking everywhere, Menninger, the devout Freudian, sees aggression.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1997), p. 172.

Kent Hovind photo
Bob Dylan photo
Michael Moorcock photo
Huldrych Zwingli photo
Robert E. Howard photo

“Poor devils, they'll wake up in hell without knowing how they got there.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Black Vulmea's Vengeance" (1938)

Marianne von Werefkin photo
Tryon Edwards photo
Robert Southey photo

“From his brimstone bed, at break of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To look at his little, snug farm of the World,
And see how his stock went on.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

St. 1.
The Devil's Walk http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/shelley/devil/devil.rs1860.html (1799)

Peter Akinola photo

“a misfit, a wolf in shepherd’s clothing and one of the end-time agents of the devil sent to lead astray those who would have believed in God.”

Peter Akinola (1944) Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria

referring to the Anglican Primate of South Africa, Archibishop Winston Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“542. All Saint without, all Devil within.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Thomas Wolfe photo
Angela of Foligno photo
John Donne photo
Stephen Harper photo

“[T]he NDP is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

1990s, Speech to the Council for National Policy (1997)

“The gods of one age become the devils of the age to follow. The priests look forward to the age to come and see only the end of the world.”

Lon Milo DuQuette (1948) American occult writer

Source: Angels, Demons, & Gods of the New Millennium (1997), Chapter 4

Aleister Crowley photo

“I with Alostrael alone - we shall do Magick unto our Lord the Devil such as the Earth hath never known.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: Magical Record of the Beast 666: The Diaries of Aleister Crowley 1914-1920 (1972), p. 274

Isaac Asimov photo

“To be sure, the Bible contains the direct words of God. How do we know? The Moral Majority says so. How do they know? They say they know and to doubt it makes you an agent of the Devil or, worse, a Lbr-l Dm-cr-t. And what does the Bible textbook say? Well, among other things it says the earth was created in 4004 BC (Not actually, but a Moral Majority type figured that out three and a half centuries ago, and his word is also accepted as inspired.) The sun was created three days later. The first male was molded out of dirt, and the first female was molded, some time later, out of his rib. As far as the end of the universe is concerned, the Book of Revelation (6:13-14) says: "And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind." … Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"The Blind Who Would Lead", essay in The Roving Mind (1983); as quoted in Canadian Atheists Newsletter (1994)
General sources

Helen Garner photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Robert Southey photo

“How, then, was the Devil dressed?
Oh! he was in his Sunday's best;
His coat was red, and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where his tail came through.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

St. 3.
The Devil's Walk http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/shelley/devil/devil.rs1860.html (1799)

John of St. Samson photo

“Those who apply themselves more ardently to the practice of love, by that very face bring more devils upon their heads.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From, Light on Carmel: An Anthology from the Works of Brother John of Saint Samson, O.Carm.

Aleister Crowley photo

“You ought never to speak to your children in a passion; for if you do, you will put devils into them.”

Ann Lee (1736–1784) English Shaker leader

The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875)

Colin Wilson photo
Tom Waits photo

“If I exorcise my devils, well, my angels may leave too.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

"Please Call Me, Baby", The Heart of Saturday Night (1974).

Samuel Butler (poet) photo

“That each man Swore to do his best,
To damn and perjure all the rest!
And bid the Devil take the hin'most,
Which at this race is like to win most.”

Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Context: Shall we that in the Cov'nant swore,
Each man of us to run before
Another, still in Reformation,
Give dogs and bears a dispensation?
How will Dissenting Brethren relish it?
What will malignants say? videlicet,
That each man Swore to do his best,
To damn and perjure all the rest!
And bid the Devil take the hin'most,
Which at this race is like to win most.

Aleister Crowley photo

“I decided that the devil finds work for idle hands and thanked him for his suggestion.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

Home is the Hangman (1975)

Allen West (politician) photo