Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Quotes

One of the greatest superstitions of our time is the belief that it has none.

In the absence of evidence, superstition. It's a Middle Ages thing. That's my theory anyway.

Primitive superstition lies just below the surface of even the most tough-minded individuals, and it is precisely those who most fight against it who are the first to succumb to its suggestive effects.

Our forefathers looked upon nature with more reverence and horror, before the world was enlightened by learning and philosophy, and loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and inchantments. There was not a village in England that had not a ghost in it, the church-yards were all haunted, every large common had a circle of fairies belonging to it, and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit.

Nothing in all the world is so nonsensical and contradictory, save mortals, that is, who live in the grip of the superstitions of the past.

One of my superstitions is I'm not allowed to talk about them.

...belief has a second edge. If there are ten thousand medieval peasants who create vampires by believing them real, there may be one - probably a child - who will imagine the stake necessary to kill it. But a stake is only stupid wood; the mind is the mallet which drives it home.

Superstition is the spleen of the soul.

A touch of science, even bogus science, gives an edge to the superstitious tale.

Superstition is the poison of the mind.

the greatest American superstition was belief in facts.

I had hoped that out of so many stories you would at least have produced one or two, which could hardly be questioned, and which would clearly show that ghosts or spectres exist. The case you relate... seems to me laughable. In like manner it would be tedious here to examine all the stories of people, who have written on these trifles. To be brief, I cite the instance of Julius Caesar, who, as Suetonius testifies, laughed at such things and yet was happy. ...And so should all who reflect on the human imagination, and the effects of the emotions, laugh at such notions

Folklore provides a socially sanctioned outlet for the discussion of the forbidden and taboo.

Superstitious." What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called "faith". But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition?

Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.

Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.

For this reason, if you believe proverbs, let me tell you the common one: "It is unlucky to marry in May.

I think superstition has a lot to do with fear: the less, the better.

No man of sense in the whole world believes in devils any more than he does in mermaids, vampires, gorgons, hydras, naiads, dryads, nymphs, fairies, the Fountain of Youth, [or] the Philosopher's Stone. . . .

Superstition is the poesy of practical life; hence, a poet is none the worse for being superstitious.

Superstition is a quality that seems indigenous to the ocean.

What is superstition , but misguided, unobjective science? And when it comes down to that, is it to be wondered if people grasp at superstition in this rotten, hate-filled, half-doomed world of today? Lord knows, I'd welcome the blackest of black magic, if it could do anything to stave off the atom bomb.

As they say in my country, the only thing that separates us from the animals is mindless superstition and pointless ritual.

There is superstition in avoiding superstition.

For a long time, no village girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower from that field of death: and after many a year had come and gone, the berries growing there, were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them.