This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Hermann Keyserling, fully Hermann Alexander Graf Keyserling
The greatest American superstition is a belief in facts.
Belief | Superstition |
A good deal of so-called atheism is itself, from my point of view, theologically significant. It is the working of God in history, and judgement upon the pious. An authentic prophet can be a radical critic of spurious piety, of sham spirituality.
Science keeps down the weed of superstition not by logic, but by rendering the mental soil unfit for its cultivation.
Jules de Goncourt, fully Jules Huot de Goncourt
If there is a God, atheism must strike Him as less of an insult than religion.
Regardless of their prior attitudes [on near death experience] - whether skeptical or deeply religious - and regardless of the many variations in religious beliefs and degrees of skepticism from tolerant disbelief to outspoken atheism - most of these people were convinced that they had been in the presence of some supreme and loving power and had a glimpse of a life yet to come.
Atheism | Death | Disbelief | Life | Life | People | Power | Skepticism |
Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, fully Arthur James Balfour, aka Lord Balfour
The superstition that all our hours of work are a minus quantity in the happiness of life, and all the hours of idleness are plus ones, is a most ludicrous and pernicious doctrine, and its greatest support comes from our not taking sufficient trouble, not making a real effort, to make work as near pleasure as it can be.
Idleness | Pleasure | Superstition | Work | Happiness |
Ludwig Feuerbach, fully Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach
If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism - at least in the sense of this work - is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.
Atheism | Divinity | Intention | Nothing | Religion | Sense | Truth | Work |
Superstition is related to this life, religion to the next; superstition is allied to fatality, religion to virtue; it is by the vivacity of earthly desires that we become superstitious; it is. on the contrary, by the sacrifice of these desires that we become religious.
Religion | Sacrifice | Superstition |
Religion without morality is a superstition and a curse, and morality without religion is impossible.
Morality | Religion | Superstition |
Max Planck, fully Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck
Religion and science wage together an incessantly continuing, never slackening fight against skepticism and dogmatism, against disbelief (Unglaube) and superstition (Aberglaube) and the guiding slogan in this fight is from times immemorial and into the whole future: Up to God! (Hin zu Gott)
Disbelief | Science | Skepticism | Superstition |
Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal
I advise you to guard against atheism and materialism. The biggest blunder made by Europe was the separation of Church and State. This deprived their culture of moral soul and diverted it to the atheistic materialism.
Perhaps we should comprehend these things better were it not for the persistence of the superstition that human beings habitually think. There is no more persistent superstition than this.
Better | Persistence | Superstition |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Refuse to be bound by karma; it is an old superstition of the ignorant to believe you cannot change your destiny.
Change | Superstition | Old |
Paul Chatfield, pseudonym for Horace Smith
Pure religion may generally be measured by the cheerfulness of its professors, and superstition by the gloom of its victims.
Cheerfulness | Gloom | Religion | Superstition |
Paul Johann Feuerbach, fully Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach
If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism -- at least in the sense of this work -- is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.
Atheism | Divinity | Intention | Nothing | Religion | Sense | Truth | Work |
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The sure characteristic of a sound and strong mind is, to find, in everything, those certain bounds, quos ultra citrave nequit consistere rectum. These boundaries are marked out by a very fine line, which only good sense and attention can discover; it is much too fine for vulgar eyes. In manners, this line is good breeding; beyond it, is troublesome ceremony; short of it, is unbecoming negligence and inattention. In morals, it divides ostentatious Puritanism from criminal relaxation; in religion, superstition from impiety; and, in short, every virtue from its kindred vice or weakness.
Attention | Good | Mind | Sense | Sound | Superstition | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one. I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
The alternative which I favor is to renounce all euphemisms and grasp the nettle of the word atheism itself, precisely because it is a taboo word carrying frissons of hysterical phobia. Critical mass may be harder to achieve than with some non-confrontational euphemism, but if we did achieve it with the dread word atheist, the political impact would be all the greater.
Darwin made it possible for us to give a sensible answer to the curious child whose question heads this chapter. ['Why are people?'] We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems; Is there meaning to life? What are we for? What is Man?
Meaning | Question | Superstition | Child |
We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems: Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man?
Meaning | Superstition |