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Devil

supernatural entity that is a personification of evil and enemy of a god or gods and/or humankind

A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in many and various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force.

He is as ready as he can wish...to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory.

Quotes

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In the most deeply significant of the legends concerning Jesus, we are told how the devil took him up into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time… Upton Sinclair
 
Mara, as the Prince of the world, holding in his clutches the wheel of life, has been preserved, we can learn from a comparison of an old fresco in the deserted caves of Central India, with Tibetan and Japanese pictures of the same subject. All of them show in the centre the three causes of selfhood, viz., hatred, spite, and sloth, symbolised in a serpent, a cock, and a pig. They are also called the three fires, or the three roots of evil,which are raga (passion), doso (sin), 7noho (infatuation).
 
The Christians were the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma of the Church... the clergy fear above all to be forced to relinquish this hold on humanity. They are not willing to let us judge of the tree (Christianity) by its fruits... ~ H.P. Blavatsky
  • Remember the ancient saying, “If you seize the lesser devil by the tail, he will lead you to his superior.”
  • The Bible is very vague. Bits and pieces from lots of now-defunct religions got synthesized: The cloven feet from Pan, the horns from the gods of various cults in the near east. In the 15th and 16th century, these solidified into this personification of evil, seen as the great enemy of Christ, the Church, and mankind: a horned, bestial, furry figure.
  • He complained in no way of the evil reputation under which he lived, indeed, all over the world, and he assured me that he himself was of all living beings the most interested in the destruction of Superstition, and he avowed to me that he had been afraid, relatively as to his proper power, once only, and that was on the day when he had heard a preacher, more subtle than the rest of the human herd, cry in his pulpit: "My dear brethren, do not ever forget, when you hear the progress of lights praised, that the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist!"
  • The devil, you see, is that friend who never stays with us to the end.
    • Georges Bernanos, Monsieur Ouine (1943), translated by William S. Bush. Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000, p. 171
  • How did the Devil come? When first attack?
  • "There is a personal God, and there is a personal Devil!" thunders the Christian preacher. "Let him be anathema who dares say nay!" "There is no personal God, except the gray matter in our brain," contemptuously replies the materialist. "And there is no Devil. Let him be considered thrice an idiot who says aye." Meanwhile the occultists and true philosophers heed neither of the two combatants, but keep perseveringly at their work. None of them believe in the absurd, passionate, and fickle God of superstition, but all of them believe in good and evil. p. 31
  • "Shut the door in the face of the daemon," says the Kabala, "and he will keep running away from you, as if you pursued him," which means, that you must not give a hold on you to such spirits of obsession by attracting them into an atmosphere of congenial sin. These daemons seek to introduce themselves into the bodies of the simple-minded and idiots, and remain there until dislodged therefrom by a powerful and pure will. Jesus, Apollonius, and some of the apostles, had the power to cast out devils, by purifying the atmosphere within and without the patient, so as to force the unwelcome tenant to flight. p. 319
  • The true doctrine of Buddha says that the demons, when nature produced the sun, moon, and stars, were human beings, but, on account of their sins, they fell from the state of felicity. If they commit greater sins, they suffer greater punishments, and condemned men are reckoned by them among the devils; while, on the contrary, demons who die (elemental spirits) and are born or incarnated as men, and commit no more sin, can arrive at the state of celestial felicity. p. 402
  • William Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
    Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
    William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
    Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
    • Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (1967), act I, p. 39.
  • Every man for himself, his own ends, the devil for all.
    • Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III, Section I. Memb, III
  • The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies.
    • Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III, Section IV. Memb. I. Subsection III
  • And bid the devil take the hin'most.
    • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto II, line 633. Burns, To a Haggis. John Fletcher, The Tragedy of Bouduca, Act IV, scene 2
  • Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick
    (Though he gave his name to our Old Nick).
  • Here is the devil-and-all to pay.
  • Well the Devil went down to Georgia
    He was lookin' for a soul to steal
    He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind
    And he was willin' to make a deal.
When he came across this young man
Sawin' on a fiddle and playin' it hot
And the Devil jumped up on a hickory stump
And said, "Boy, let me tell you what"
"You probably didn't know it
But I'm a fiddle player too
And if you care to take a dare
I'll just make a bet with you."
  • Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
    The Devil always builds a chapel there:
    And 'twill be found, upon examination,
    The latter has the largest congregation.
  • Satan is an empty shell, you know. He can only use and pervert that which comes from the lips of God. This is his forte.
    • Catherine Doherty, Sobornost (1977). Expanded second edition (Combermere, Ontario: Madonna House Publications, 2011), p. 93
  • The devil is chained. He can bark, but he cannot bite, unless we go up to him and let him do so.
    • Frederick William Faber, Growth in Holiness, or The Progress of the Spiritual Life (Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1855), Ch. XIV: "Temptations", pp. 292–293
  • Lucifer: Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spent my entire days sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commits acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The devil made me do it.' I have never made one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them.
  • One is always wrong to open a conversation with the devil, for, however he goes about it, he always insists on having the last word.
    • André Gide, 1917, in Journals 1889–1949, translated by Justin O'Brien
  • You see, Mr. Simpson—a man, well, he'll walk right into Hell with both eyes open. But even the Devil can't fool a dog!
  • While the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts, Ethan Brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. The action was in such accordance with the idea in Bertram's mind, that he almost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot, from the raging furnace.
    Hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was ashamed of his fears, although they overmastered him. "Don't, for mercy's sake, bring out your Devil now!"
    "Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, "what need have I of the Devil? I have left him behind me, on my track. It is with such half-way sinners as you that he busies himself. ..." He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to gaze into the hollow prison-house of the fire, regardless of the fierce glow that reddened his face. ..."I have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven times hotter with sinful passions than yonder furnace is with fire. But I found not there what I sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin!"
  • Why should the devil have all the good tunes?
    • Rowland Hill, sermon, reported in Edward W. Broome, The Rev. Rowland Hill: Preacher and Wit (1881), p. 93, in the sentence: "He did not see any reason why the devil should have all rhe good tunes"
  • Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
  • Even a most evil man is better than the devil!
    • Jan Hus in Booklet against the Cook-priest in response to the rival priest who swore that Hus is worse than any devil. Quoted in A Companion to Jan Hus (2015) by František Šmahel (ed.), pp. 201-202.
  • We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
  • Our adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8 You make darkness, David says, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God. The devil looks not for unbelievers, for those who are without, whose flesh the Assyrian king roasted in the furnace. Jeremiah 29:22 It is the church of Christ that he makes haste to spoil. According to Habakkuk, His food is of the choicest. A Job is the victim of his machinations, and after devouring Judas he seeks power to sift the [other] apostles. Luke 22:31 The Saviour came not to send peace upon the earth but a sword. Matthew 10:34 Lucifer fell, Lucifer who used to rise at dawn; Isaiah 14:12 and he who was bred up in a paradise of delight had the well-earned sentence passed upon him, Though thou exalt yourself as the eagle, and though thou set your nest among the stars, thence will I bring you down, says the Lord. Obadiah 4 For he had said in his heart, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will be like the Most High. Isaiah 14:13-14 Wherefore God says every day to the angels, as they descend the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream, Genesis 28:12 I have said you are Gods and all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men and fall like one of the princes. The devil fell first, and since God stands in the congregation of the Gods and judges among the Gods, the apostle writes to those who are ceasing to be Gods — Whereas there is among you envying and strife, are you not carnal and walk as men? 1 Corinthians 3:3
    • Jerome, Letter 22, p.4; as qtd. in "CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 22 (Jerome)", New Advent, translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
  • Job was dear to God, perfect and upright before Him; Job 2:3 yet hear what he says of the devil: His strength is in the loins, and his force is in the navel.
    The terms are chosen for decency's sake, but the reproductive organs of the two sexes are meant. Thus, the descendant of David, who, according to the promise is to sit upon his throne, is said to come from his loins. And the seventy-five souls descended from Jacob who entered Egypt are said to come out of his thigh. Genesis 46:26 So, also, when his thigh shrank after the Lord had wrestled with him, Genesis 32:24-25 he ceased to beget children. The Israelites, again, are told to celebrate the passover with loins girded and mortified. Exodus 12:11 God says to Job: Gird up your loins as a man. Job 38:3 John wears a leathern girdle. Matthew 3:4 The apostles must gird their loins to carry the lamps of the Gospel. Luke 12:35 When Ezekiel tells us how Jerusalem is found in the plain of wandering, covered with blood, he uses the words: Your navel has not been cut. Ezekiel 16:4-6 In his assaults on men, therefore, the devil's strength is in the loins; in his attacks on women his force is in the navel.
    • Jerome, Letter 22, p.11; as qtd. in "CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 22 (Jerome)", New Advent, translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
  • Now it came to be the day when the sons of the [true] God entered to take their station before Jehovah, and even Satan proceeded to enter right among them. Then Jehovah said to Satan: “Where do you come from?” At that Satan answered Jehovah and said: “From roving about in the earth and from walking about in it.”
  • And war broke out in heaven: Mi′cha·el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled 8 but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven. 9 So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our God!
  • The Devil is an ass, I do acknowledge it.
    • Ben Jonson, The Devil Is an Ass (performed 1616; published 1631), Act IV, scene 1
  • The devil's voice is sweet to hear.
  • It is stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the devil, when he is the only explanation of it.
  • Der Teufel ist ein Optimist, wenn er glaubt, daß er die Menschen schlechter machen kann.
    • The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.
    • Karl Kraus, Die Fackel, no. 277/78 (March 31, 1909), translated in Thomas Szasz, Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry (1970), Chapter 8
  • And now I would ask a strange question: who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in all England that passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you: it is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times; ye shall never find him out of the way, call for him when you will he is ever at home; the diligentest preacher in all the realm; he is ever at his plough; no lording nor loitering can hinder him; he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery. He is ready as he can be wished for to set forth his plough; to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory...O that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel.
    • Hugh Latimer, "Sermon on the Plough'", 29 January 1548. (G. E. Corrie (ed.), Sermons by Hugh Latimer, sometime Bishop of Worcester, Martyr, 1555 (Cambridge University Press, 1844), pp. 70-1)
  • It is Lucifer,
    The son of mystery;
    And since God suffers him to be,
    He, too, is God's minister,
    And labors for some good
    By us not understood.
  • Tell your master that if there were as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs, I would enter.
    • Martin Luther (April 16, 1521). See Bunsen's Life of Luther, p. 61
  • Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
    And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
    And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
  • Again the Devil took him along to an unusually high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him: “All these things I will give you if you fall down and do an act of worship to me.”
  • The infernal serpent; he it was whose guile,
    Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceived
    The mother of mankind.
  • His form had yet not lost
    All his original brightness, nor appear'd
    Less than arch-angel ruined, and th' excess
    Of glory obscured.
  • From morn
    To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
    A summer's day; and with the setting sun
    Dropt from the zenith like a falling star.
  • Black it stood as night,
    Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
    And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
    The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
    Satan was now at hand.
  • Incens'd with indignation Satan stood
    Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd    ,
    That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
    In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
    Shakes pestilence and war.
  • Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
  • The true name for Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of Yahveh reversed; for Satan is not a black god, but the negation of God. The Devil is the personification of Atheism or Idolatry. For the Initiates, this is not a Person, but a Force, created for good but which may serve for evil. It is the instrument of Liberty or Free Will. (p. 102)
    • Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry prepared for the Supreme Council of the Thirty Third Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States: Charleston, 1871. p.102
  • When there is question of saving souls, or preventing greater harm to souls, We feel the courage to treat with the devil in person.
    • Pope Pius XI, speech to the students of the Mondragone college (May 14, 1929); reported as unverified but recounted in Robert A. Graham, Vatican Diplomacy (1959), p. 351.
  • The Inquisition was established not just for the persecution of pitiful witches and sorcerers (mostly mediums), but for the annihilation of all the differently minded people, and all personal enemies of the representatives of the church, the latter having decided to obtain absolute power... Indeed, the easiest way to destroy the enemy was by accusing him of being in league with the devil. This devilish psychology the so-called "Guardians of the purity of Christian Principles" attempted to instill into the consciousness of the masses in every possible way.
    • Helena Roerich, Letters of Helena Roerich Volume I: 1929-1935, (11 August 1934 )
  • Thus, the ignoramuses laugh at the existence of Satan and, by that very fact, they confirm the correctness of the words of one subtle thinker, "The victory of the devil lies in his ability to convince people that he does not exist." The irrefutable proofs of the actuality of the other world and the life in it exists in great quantities and are available to many, but the trouble is that the broad masses are very badly informed about this. Besides, the atavism of the Middle Ages still makes many people fear the horns of the devil in every manifestation that is not understandable to them. Likewise, the fires of the Inquisition are still very fresh in the memory of many who suffered from them. Hence, there may be fear in connection with these matters.
    • Helena Roerich, Letters of Helena Roerich Volume II: 1935-1939, (3 December 1937)
  • T-Bird: Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful goodness is.
  • Martin, resisting the devil firmly, answered him, that by-past sins are cleansed away by the leading of a better life, and that through the mercy of God, those are to be absolved from their sins who have given up their evil ways. The devil saying in opposition to this that such guilty men as those referred to did not come within the pale of pardon, and that no mercy was extended by the Lord to those who had once fallen away, Martin is said to have cried out in words to the following effect: “If you, yourself, wretched being, would but desist from attacking mankind, and even, at this period, when the day of judgment is at hand, would only repent of your deeds, I, with a true confidence in the Lord, would promise you the mercy of Christ.”
  • I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,
    To yield possession to my holy prayers,
    And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight;
    I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven!
  • Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables.
  • Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.
  • In the most deeply significant of the legends concerning Jesus, we are told how the devil took him up into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and the devil said unto him: "All this power will I give unto thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine." Jesus, as we know, answered and said "Get thee behind me, Satan!" And he really meant it; he would have nothing to do with worldly glory, with "temporal power;" he chose the career of a revolutionary agitator, and died the death of a disturber of the peace. And for two or three centuries his church followed in his footsteps, cherishing his proletarian gospel. The early Christians had "all things in common, except women;" they lived as social outcasts, hiding in deserted catacombs, and being thrown to lions and boiled in oil.
    But the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one defeat, for he knows human nature, and the strength of the forces which battle for him. He failed to get Jesus, but he came again, to get Jesus' church. He came when, through the power of the new revolutionary idea, the Church had won a position of tremendous power in the decaying Roman Empire; and the subtle worm assumed the guise of no less a person than the Emperor himself, suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory of God. The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for their organization, fell for this scheme, and Satan went off laughing to himself. He had got everything he had asked from Jesus three hundred years before; he had got the world's greatest religion.
    • Upton Sinclair, in The Profits of Religion : An Essay in Economic Interpretation (1918), Book Seven : The Church of the Social Revolution, "Christ and Caesar".
  • Without Satan, with God only, how poor a universe, how trite a music!
  • We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.
    • Mark Twain, "Concerning the Jews", Harper's Magazine (September 1899)
  • A person [Satan] who has during all time maintained the imposing position of spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of the whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilities of the loftiest order.
    • Mark Twain, "Concerning the Jews", Harper's Magazine (September 1899)
  • Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just God when he's drunk.
    • Tom Waits "Heartattack and Vine", Heartattack and Vine (1980)
  • Wow! I like that, see? Because that's the way the devil does it. Everytime you make an error, everytime you make a mistake and I mean it's nothing but a mistake; the first thing he says is 'if you are what you say you are', 'If you are a preacher', 'If you were a Christian'. That's the devil, everytime you hear it from somebody. Did you hear what I said? Everytime you hear somebody make a suggestion like that, remember that's not them, that's the devil! And I don't want to go too much further without telling you this: Before the devil even opens his mouth you ought already know who you are. It won't shake you, it won't bother you, because you already know who you are!"

Isis Unveiled, H.P. Blavatsky (1877)

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(Full text),

  • Thus we may infer that the only characteristic difference between modern Christianity and the old heathen faiths is the belief of the former in a personal devil and in hell. "The Aryan nations had no devil," says Max Muller. "Pluto, though of a sombre character, was a very respectable personage; and Loki (the Scandinavian), though a mischievous person, was not a fiend. The German Goddess, Hell, too, like Proserpine, had once seen better days. Thus, when the Germans were indoctrinated with the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Seth, Satan or Diabolus, they treated him in the most good-humored way."
    The same may be said of hell. Hades was quite a different place from our region of eternal damnation, and might be termed rather an intermediate state of purification. Neither does the Scandinavian Hel or Hela, imply either a state or a place of punishment; for when Frigga, the grief-stricken mother of Bal-dur, the white god, who died and found himself in the dark abodes of the shadows (Hades) sent Hermod, a son of Thor, in quest of her beloved child, the messenger found him in the inexorable region — alas! but still comfortably seated on a rock, and reading a book. The Norse kingdom of the dead is moreover situated in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions; it is a cold and cheerless abode, and neither the gelid halls of Hela, nor the occupation of Baldur present the least similitude to the blazing hell of eternal fire and the miserable "damned" sinners with which the Church so generously peoples it. (Part II, Chapter I, p. 10) 
  • The Christians were the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma of the Church. And once that she had established it, she had to struggle for over 1,700 years for the repression of a mysterious force which it was her policy to make appear of diabolical origin. Unfortunately, in manifesting itself, this force invariably tends to upset such a belief by the ridiculous discrepancy it presents between the alleged cause and the effects. If the clergy have not over-estimated the real power of the "Arch-Enemy of God," it must be confessed that he takes mighty precautions against being recognized as the "Prince of Darkness" who aims at our souls. If modern "spirits" are devils at all, as preached by the clergy, then they can only be those "poor" or "stupid devils" whom Max Muller describes as appearing so often in the German and Norwegian tales. (Part II, Chapter I)
  • Notwithstanding this, the clergy fear above all to be forced to relinquish this hold on humanity. They are not willing to let us judge of the tree by its fruits, for that might sometimes force them into dangerous dilemmas. They refuse, likewise, to admit, with unprejudiced people, that the phenomena of Spiritualism has unquestionably spiritualized and reclaimed from evil courses many an indomitable atheist and skeptic. But, as they confess themselves, what is the use in a Pope, if there is no Devil? (Part II, Chapter I) (Part Two, Chapter 1)
  • And so Rome sends her ablest advocates and preachers to the rescue of those perishing in "the bottomless pit." Rome employs her cleverest writers for this purpose — albeit they all indignantly deny the accusation — and in the preface to every book put forth by the prolific des Mousseaux, the French Tertullian of our century, we find undeniable proofs of the fact. Among other certificates of ecclesiastical approval, every volume is ornamented with the text of a certain original letter addressed to the very pious author by the world-known Father Ventura de Raulica, of Rome. Few are those who have not heard this famous name. It is the name of one of the chief pillars of the Latin Church, the ex-General of the Order of the Theatins, Consultor of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Examiner of Bishops, and of the Roman Clergy, etc., etc., etc. This strikingly characteristic document will remain to astonish future generations by its spirit of unsophisticated demonolatry and unblushing sincerity. We translate a fragment verbatim, and by thus helping its circulation hope to merit the blessings of Mother Church:
  • Monsieur and excellent Friend:
The greatest victory of Satan was gained on that day when he succeeded in making himself denied.
To demonstrate the existence of Satan, is to reestablish one of the fundamental dogmas of the Church, which serve as a basis for Christianity, and, without which, Satan would be but a name...
Magic, mesmerism, magnetism, somnambulism, spiritualism, spiritism, hypnotism... are only other names for satanism.
To bring out such a truth and show it in its proper light, is to unmask the enemy; it is to unveil the immense danger of certain practices, reputed innocent; it is to deserve well in the eyes of humanity and of religion.
(signed) Father Ventura de Raulica. (Les Hauts Phenomenes de la Magie, p. v., Preface) quoted by Blavatsky in (Part II, Chapter I)
  • Anathematizing every manifestation of occult nature outside the precincts of the Church, the clergy — notwithstanding proofs to the contrary — call it "the work of Satan," "the snares of the fallen angels," who "rush in and out from the bottomless pit," mentioned by John in his kabalistic Revelation, "from whence arises a smoke as the smoke of a great furnace... Intoxicated by its fumes, around this pit are daily gathering millions of Spiritualists, to worship at 'the Abyss of Baal.' (Part II, Chapter I)

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 192-93.
  • Renounce the Devil and all his works.
    • Book of Common Prayer, Baptism of Infants
  • Therefore it behooveth hire a full long spoon
    That shal ete with a feend.
    • Geoffrey Chaucer, The Squire's Tale, line 602. Same idea in George Meriton, Praise of Yorkshire Ale. Dekker, Batchelars' Banquet, Works, I. 170. (Grosart's ed). Heywood, Proverbs, Part II, Chapter V. Kemp, Nine Days Wonder (1600). Marlowe, Jew of Malta, III, IV. Comedy of Errors, IV, III. 64. Tempest, II. 2
  • Auch die Kultur, die alle Welt beleckt,
    Hat auf den Teufel sich erstreckt.
  • Nein, nein! Der Teufel ist ein Egoist
    Und thut nicht leicht um Gottes Willen,
    Was einem Andern nützlich ist.
    • No, no! The devil is an egotist,
      And is not apt, without why or wherefore,
      "For God's sake," others to assist.
    • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, I. 4. 124
  • I call'd the devil, and he came,
    And with wonder his form did I closely scan;
    He is not ugly, and is not lame,
    But really a handsome and charming man.
    A man in the prime of life is the devil,
    Obliging, a man of the world, and civil;
    A diplomatist too, well skill'd in debate,
    He talks quite glibly of church and state.
  • When the devil drives, needs must. (Needs must when the devil drives.)
  • How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
    • Isaiah, XIV. 12
  • What is got over the devil's back is spent under his belly.
  • Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
    • James, IV. 7
  • The king of terrors.
    • Job, XVIII. 14
  • The devil, my friends, is a woman just now.
    'Tis a woman that reigns in Hell.
  • Swings the scaly horror of his folded tail.
  • Bid the Devil take the slowest.
  • Verflucht wer mit dem Teufel spielt.
  • From his brimstone bed, at break of day,
    A-walking the Devil is gone,
    To look at his little snug farm of the world,
    And see how his stock went on.
    • Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Devil's Walk, Stanza 1. Title originally Devils' Thoughts. Coleridge assigns to Southey the first four stanzas. See his Sibylline Leaves. (1817), p. 98. Claim of Porson a hoax.
  • The Satanic school.

See also

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  •   Encyclopedic article on Devil on Wikipedia
  •   The dictionary definition of devil on Wiktionary
  •   Media related to Devils on Wikimedia Commons
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