quotations about the devil
Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.
HOLLY BLACK
White Cat
If the devil went about doing a tenth of what he is accused of doing he would be poor from paying the blacksmith for ox-shoes for his hooves.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
An apology for the Devil: It must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case. God has written all the books.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Note Books
The Devil hardly ever made anyone do anything. He didn't have to. That was what some humans found hard to understand. Hell wasn't a major reservoir of evil, any more than Heaven ... was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game. Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind.
NEIL GAIMAN & TERRY PRATCHETT
Good Omens
It takes a man to make a devil.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Brothers Karamazov
Many human beings need no supernatural mentoring to commit acts of savagery; some people are devils in their own right, their telltale horns having grown inward to facilitate their disguise.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Thomas
When the Devil quotes Scriptures, it's not, really, to deceive, but simply that the masses are so ignorant of theology that somebody has to teach them the elementary texts before he can seduce them.
PAUL GOODMAN
Five Years
The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Merchant of Venice
I mean, the more a man was in the Devil's power, the less he would be aware of it, on the principle that a man is still fairly sober as long as he knows he's drunk.
C. S. LEWIS
God in the Dock
People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil. I don't know why. No, I do indeed know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.
ANNE RICE
Interview with the Vampire
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
ENGLISH PROVERB
The world is, was, will always be filled with good and evil, because good and evil is the yin and yang of the human condition. It tells me something else. If you remember, God's favorite angel was Lucifer. Apparently, Lucifer means "the light." It also means "the morning star," in some scripture. And apparently, he disobeyed God, and that's the ultimate disobedience to authority. And when he did, Michael, the archangel, was sent to kick him out of heaven along with the other fallen angels. And so Lucifer descends into hell, becomes Satan, becomes the devil, and the force of evil in the universe begins.
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
TED talk, Sep. 2008
The devil always has you right were God wants you.
STEVE MARABOLI
Life, the Truth, and Being Free
The devil keeps man from good with a thousand machinations spewed from his belly, so that when a person sighs to do good, he pierces him with his shafts; and when he desires to embrace God with his whole heart in love, he subjects him to poisonous tribulations, seeking to pervert good work before God. And when a person seeks the viridity of virtue, the devil tells him that he does not know what he is doing, and he teaches him that he can set his own law for himself.
HILDEGARD OF BINDEN
letter to the Abbot, c. 1166
The myth about the angel who rebelled against his Lord is the most beautiful of all myths, the proudest, the most revolutionary, the most immortal of them all.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Day and the Age
Look what they've done to this house of love
It's too late to turn river to blood
The savior's come and gone, we're all out of time
The devil's in the temple and he ain't no friend of mine
BON JOVI
"This House Is Not for Sale", The Devil's in the Temple
The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
"Young Goodman Brown"
When the devil is called the God of this world, it is not because he made it, but because we serve him with our worldliness.
THOMAS AQUINAS
attributed, Treasury of Spiritual Wisdom
Angel in black
And I recognize the face behind the mask
It's a devil's disguise
FLEETWOOD MAC
"Behind the Mask"