H. G. Wells Quotes

It is in the nature of man to like what he is familiar with and in what he has been brought up, and that he fears anything alien. The plurality of religions and their mutual intolerance result from the fact that people remain faithful to the education they receive.

In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue.

Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom.

All people have their blind side-their superstitions.

Men become superstitious, not because they have too much imagination, but because they are not aware that they have any.

We may be living in the twentieth century, in resplendent sophistication. But deep down, most of us find ourselves still in the Stone Age of superstition.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

The natural inclination in all humans is to posit a force, a spirit, outside of us. That tendency toward superstitious magical thinking is just built into our nature.

Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable of.

A quest for knowledge is not a war with faith; spirituality is not usually an infelicitous amalgam of superstition and philistinism; and moral relativism, taken outside midfield, leads inexorably both to heresy and to secular wickedness, which are often identical.

Men blaspheme what they do not know.

Superstitions and belief in magic are perennial in just the same way as religion, and something near to being universal among mankind; and why this is so may be interesting, but in most cases the beliefs themselves are devoid of interesting content, at least to me.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

When men destroy their old gods they will find new ones to take their place.

If one were to bring ten of the wisest men in the world together and ask them what was the most stupid thing in existence, they would not be able to discover anything so stupid as astrology.

Religion, superstition, oaths, education, laws, all give way before passions, interest, and power.

It is hard to imagine, considering the inherent silliness, cruelty and superstition of the human race, how it has contrived to last as long as it has. The witch-hunting, the torturing, the gullibility, the massacres, the intolerance, the wild futility of human behaviour over the centuries is hardly credible. And the laws, as they stand today, are almost inconceivably stupid. With all this brilliant scientific knowledge of atom splitting and nuclear physics, etc., we are still worshipping at different shrines, imprisoning homosexuals, imposing unnecessary and completely irrelevant restrictions on each other. Hearts can be withdrawn from human beasts, dead hearts, and, after a little neat manipulation, popped back again as good as new. The skies can be conquered. Sputniks can whiz round and round the globe and be controlled and guided. People are still genuflecting before crucifixes and Virgin Marys, still persecuting other people for being coloured or Jewish or in some way different from what they apparently should be. There are wars being waged at this very moment in Indonesia, Algeria, the Middle East, Cyprus, etc. The Pope still makes pronouncements against birth control. The Ku-Klux-Klan is still, if permitted, ready to dash out and do some light lynching. God, for millions of people, is still secure in his heaven, and My Fair Lady opened in London last night.

If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.

The bulk of mankind, even in those nations which are most celebrated for learning and wisdom, are still carried down the torrents of superstition, and entertain very unworthy apprehensions

The church knows that an educated man is an unbeliever. That is why there is a continual struggle on the part of the clergy to adulterate education with superstition. To maintain their untenable position they must keep the people shackled to a form of mental slavery.

Confidence in the effect of superstitious observances is not peculiar to any age or nation. Few, even of the accomplished Greeks and Romans, were able to shake off this weakness

Almost all the calamities of man, except the physical evils which are inherent in his nature, are in a great measure to be imputed to erroneous views of religion, or bad systems of government; and these cannot be coexistent for any considerable time with an extensive diffusion of knowledge

Superstition would seem to be simply cowardice in regard to the unknown.

I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who do fear him.

Nothing is too absurd to be believed of human prejudice.