quotations about the devil
Don't board with the devil if you wish to be fat.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
When a man hurries, the devil smiles.
POLISH PROVERB
The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
WILLIAM JAMES
Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic,", The Varieties of Religious Experience
For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel.... Thus is the Devil ever God's ape.
MARTIN LUTHER
Table Talk
Baby's in the cradle, mama's in the bed
Sparrow's on the windowsill and the devil's in my head
Devil's in my head, mama, the devil's in my head
Baby's in the cradle and the devil's in my head
THE AVETT BROTHERS
"Satan Pulls the Strings"
If ever a devil was born
Without a pair of horns it was you
HERMAN'S HERMITS
"Jezebel", There's a Kind of Hush All Over the World
At the devil's booth are all things sold. Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The Vision of Sir Launfal
When the Angels arrive, the devils leave.
EGYPTIAN PROVERB
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
Th' infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed, and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
If you scratch some saints you will find the devil.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
I have never understood why people who can swallow the enormous improbability of a personal God boggle at a personal Devil.
GRAHAM GREENE
The End of the Affair
We are all acquainted with demons, aren't we? Sometimes they are more subtle than the Devil in person. They are those things that clutch at us, strangle us, force us to obey them. They control us with great delight, and finally they own us. Demons are certainly as much around today as they were in Jesus' day. They are more subtle, perhaps, and so we think we have outgrown them. Because we call them by other names, we have a way of missing them. But there is still a great force surrounding us that tries to push us into what is not of God.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR
A Tree Full of Angels
But among all the pretended miracles performed by Jesus Christ, none make so great a figure as that of casting out devils; the number of people said to have been possessed with these evil spirits, seem to have been great indeed. This is a disease apparently unknown in any former age of the world, except in the case of Saul, who had one sent from God to trouble him; and it is also unknown (among enlightened people) in any other age or country since, it seems peculiar to God's own people alone, at this particular time. The accounts of this imaginary possession with the devil, have arisen out of the ignorance and superstition of these authors, in ascribing every unknown and violent disease to the influence of the devil; and their earnest wish to show the power of their hero in subduing him. In all the accounts that have been given of the Gods, or incarnations of God, by the Greeks, Romans, Hindus, and almost every other people, it appears indispensible, in order to exhibit his power, to create some opposite principle to vanquish, that his power may be better displayed. The case has been the same with the Evangelists, as with others; in their ignorant devotion, they have conjured up the devil as an antagonist, to make Jesus triumph over him. It seems by their accounts, that he and the devil were at this time striving which to get possession of the earth; and though they represent Jesus as victorious, yet the devil was not destroyed, and mankind were tormented between them, without any benefit.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
You're just another spirit on parole
Devil's food
ALICE COOPER
"Devil's Food", Alone in His Nightmare
The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.
UMBERTO ECO
The Name of the Rose
He was a free thinker, and had little faith in God, although his name was constantly on his lips. He had lived too long, and mixed too much with men, to believe that God meddles much with the affairs of this world; on the other hand, he had a strong belief in the devil, of whom he stood in great fear.
ÉDOUARD RENÉ DE LABOULAYE
Abdallah
Don't you know there ain't no devil? There's only God when He's drunk.
TOM WAITS
"Heartattack and Vine"
The devil is like unto a chained watch-dog, which can go to the length of his chain, but no further.
F. KUEGELE
The Lutheran Witness, June 7, 1885
Upon certain times the devil holds an assembly of magicians, in which each is to give an account of what evil he has done, and what he wishes to do. At this assembly he appears in the shape of an old man, or often like a goat with large horns. They, upon this occasion, renew their vows of obedience; and then form a grand dance in honor of their false deity. The deity instructs them in every method of injuring mankind, in gathering poisons, and of riding upon occasion through the air. He shows them the whole method, upon examination, of giving evasive answers; his spirits have power to assume the form of angels of light, and there is but one method of detecting them, viz. to ask them, in proper form, what method is the most certain to propagate the faith over all the world? To this they are not permitted by the superior power to make a false reply, nor are they willing to give the true one; wherefore they continue silent, and are thus detected.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
"Rules for Raising the Devil"
The very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer.
SAUL ALINSKY
Rules for Radicals