John Selden Quotes

The law against witches does not prove there be any; …

When it came to the burning of witches, Germany was home to a kind of pre-Holocaust, where at least 100,000 people were executed for witchcraft, usually by public burning.

Witches were burned and killed in Scotland and England for centuries before what happened in Salem.

During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.....There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed.

Redheads were particularly persecuted during the European witch trials of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The colour was associated with the devil, and the pale skin which most redheads have was thought unnatural and deathly.

I should have no compassion on these witches; I should burn them all.

In many Muslim countries, witchcraft is not only on the books as a crime, but is commonly prosecuted. In 2009, for example, Saudi Arabia convicted a man for carrying a phone booklet with characters in an alphabet from his native Eritrea, which the police interpreted as occult symbols. He was lashed three hundred times and imprisoned for more than three years.

Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.

In the middle ages when people were convinced there were witches, they certainly found them.

This is the first case of it’s kind since we stopped trying people for witchcraft.

The judge may safely promise witches to spare their lives, if only he will later excuse himself from pronouncing the sentence and will let another do this in his place... .

In certain letters of mine on the same subject sent clandestinely to the clergy and town council of Trier, and to others—for the purpose of hindering the execution of justice against the witches, male and female—are contained many articles which are not only erroneous and scandalous, but also suspected of heresy and smacking of the crime of treason, as being seditious and foolhardy, against the common opinion of theological teachers and the decisions and bulls of the Supreme Pontiffs, and contrary to the practice and to the statutes and laws of the magistrates and judges, not only of this Archdiocese of Trier, but of other provinces and principalities, I do therefore revoke, condemn, reject, and repudiate the said articles

As the true magnitude of the witch problem became more apparent, the Church enlisted the Inquisition, an applied institution specifically designed to address pressing social concerns. The Inquisition became the growth industry of the day, offering exciting work, rapid advancement, and wide recognition to its professional and technical workers. Its creative and energetic efforts to create a witch-free world unearthed dangers in the most unlikely places; the rates of witch identification, assessment and evaluation soared.

Imagine: in the medieval ages, there was no evidence of how the history of mankind has been affected by witchcraft. But there is significant factual history of how brutality and sadism of mankind have been displayed in the most obscene manner in the name of witch-hunt.

The three hundredth anniversary of the Salem witch trials of 1692 comes at a time when witchcraft commands a scholarly attention that would have been puzzling in 1892 or even in 1792.

I don't want to act like the witch trials all over New England were warranted, but when you live in a culture that believes something is real, it feels very real.

When we learned about Salem at school, the whole thing was confusing. Because the idea of the witch hunt is used as a symbol to describe people searching for something that's basically untrue, it cemented in my mind as a kid that witches weren't real.

The Church worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch - the priest, the parson? No, these never discover anything.

When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? My Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.

In Shakespeare's day it was women who were being burned at the stake as witches... not men. The men were thought of as alchemists. But women doing the same thing would be a witch and would be burned.

Witches never existed, except in people’s minds. All there was in the olden days was women and some men who believed in herbal cures and in folklore and in the wish to fly. Witches? We’re all witches in one way or another. Witches was the invention of mankind, son. We’re all witches beneath the skin.

I hate witches. Humans had the right idea, burning them at the stake.

Oh my God. You're a witch-hunter. I'm a witch. Hate to break it to you Daniel, but if you're a witch-hunter? You're doing it wrong." He gave me a sidelong smile. "Maybe it's not that kind of hunting." "Then you're definitely doing it wrong.

Witches admitted their relations with the devil. Our blood boils - how could they be forced to admit this when there is no devil. But reason tells us this is not true. The devil does exist and was in fact the inquisitor.

Indeed, throughout much of history and in many cultures, redheads have been viewed with suspicion and fear - and even killed - because of their hair.