Ours was the age of enlightenment, he said, when the battle cry was, ‘We must know, we shall know!’, and reason would depose superstition and we be liberated by it.

The world, viewed philosophically, remains a series of slave camps, where citizens – tax livestock – labor under the chains of illusion in the service of their masters.

Strange though it may seem, people rarely show such enthusiasm as when they are seeking the proof of a ghost story—the soul gathers all this sort of thing to its hungry bosom.

Like ugly Asian babies, valid superstitions don’t exist. At best, any perceived effect of a superstition is you merely psyching yourself out. Think of it as an asshole placebo.

We should be agnostic about those things for which there is no evidence. We should not hold beliefs merely because they gratify our desires for afterlife, immortality, heaven, hell, etc.

The logical feebleness of science is not sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of superstition, not by logic but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for its cultivation.

Combien de choses nous servoyent hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’huy?How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?

We need not take refuge in supernatural gods to explain our saints and sages and heroes and statesmen, as if to explain our disbelief that mere unaided human beings could be that good or wise.

Every country has a cultural legacy and religious practices for reasons that I don’t believe fall under the category of superstition, something that a religious scholar should understand.

Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!

[Josiah P. Mendum memorial at Paine Hall][He turned] the strait-laced Boston of sixty years ago [into] the enlightened Hub of today, . . . to 'destroy bigotry and uproot the evils of superstition.

Nat Parson says it's the devil's mark.""Nat Parson's a gobshite."Maddy was torn between a natural feeling of sacrilege and a deep admiration of anyone who dared call a parson 'gobshite.

What's more, I believe in argument and I even love it. Argument is our most steadfast pathway toward truth, for it is the only proven arbalest against superstitious thinking, or lackadaisical axioms.

Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.

These Outwallers that killed Hector - the Sossag - they were serving a Power of the Wild called Thorn. Aye?""Naming calls. But yes." The captain drank."So I call him and he comes and I gut him," Tom said. "So?