β
Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from Heaven.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
β
Lucifer's bouncing balls, Kitten, not again!
β
β
Jeaniene Frost (Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, #1))
β
She must feel like Luciferβs frigid breath is running down the back of her delicate neck.
β
β
Gabriel F.W. Koch (Death Leaves a Shadow (Marlowe Black Mystery, #2))
β
What the hell, if you are going to roll the dice with Lucifer, I say go the distance.
β
β
Gabriel F.W. Koch (Death Leaves a Shadow (Marlowe Black Mystery, #2))
β
When angels go bad they are worse than anyone else. Remember Lucifer used to be an angel.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere (London Below, #1))
β
Awake, arise or be for ever fallβn.
β
β
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
β
Do you think Charlotte will let me handle the investigation?"
"Do you think you can be trusted in Downworld? The gaming hells, the dens of magical vice, the women of loose morals..."
Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from heaven. "Would tomorrow be to early to start looking, do you think?
Jem sighed. 'Do what you like, William. You always do.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
β
Yahweh: You've been unhappy because you've desired things that cannot be.
Lucifer: That's what desire IS. The need for what we can't have. The need for what's readily available is called greed.
β
β
Mike Carey (Lucifer, Vol. 11: Evensong)
β
Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep...
β
β
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
β
Lucifer spoke thus. Pride took him from heaven, though he sat at God's right hand.' Her voice grew faint, the hint of a whisper. 'In the end pride is the only evil, the root of all sins.'
'Pride is all I have.
β
β
Mark Lawrence (Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #1))
β
Luciferβs hairy ball sack! Youβve become a morlock.
β
β
Jeaniene Frost (Destined for an Early Grave (Night Huntress, #4))
β
Lucifer protests he was never to blame for inducing anyone to sin, and that heβs never had an interest in owning souls: 'They die, and they come here β having transgressed against what they believed to be right β and expect us to fulfill their desire for pain and retribution. I donβt make them come hereβ¦ I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No, they belong to themselves. They just hate to have to face up to it.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists)
β
He looked like a fallen angel, replete with all the dangerous male beauty that Lucifer could devise.
β
β
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3))
β
Luciferβs bouncing balls, Kitten, not again!
Youβre not a woman, youβre the Grim Reaper with red hair!
Come on, Kitten, letβs go. Before you murder someone else.β -Bones&Cat
β
β
Jeaniene Frost (Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, #1))
β
Do any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts' deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts count them as dead. Having been given so much, we reason, how could we expect not to be brought as low as Lucifer for the staggering presumption of our love?
β
β
Stephen King
β
Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. Next time, go all out and write in Lucifer on the ballot.
β
β
Jarod Kintz (99 Cents For Some Nonsense)
β
On some of my darkest days, Lucifer's the one who comes and gives me an ice cream.
β
β
Tori Amos
β
Of all the pairs the Throne endorsed
None rose to burn as bright
As Lucifer, the Morning Star,
And Lucinda, his Evening Light
β
β
Lauren Kate (Rapture (Fallen, #4))
β
Michael: There's nothing here to fear.
Lucifer: Well, there's always the truth.
β
β
Mike Carey
β
Darkness as well as light. Or do I mean darkness, another kind of light? Lucifer would say so, and I have a weakness for fallen angels.
β
β
Jeanette Winterson (Art and Lies)
β
Ash, ash β-
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing thereββ
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
β
β
Sylvia Plath (Ariel: The Restored Edition)
β
Did God ever cry over his lost angel, I wonder?
β
β
Libba Bray (Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle, #2))
β
Even Lucifer looked impressed. He muttered, "Only Lucinda could pull that off.
β
β
Lauren Kate (Rapture (Fallen, #4))
β
For nothing bestializes a being like the taste for eternal happiness, the search for eternal happiness at any price, and mademoiselle Lucifer is that slut who never wanted to abandon eternal happiness.
β
β
Antonin Artaud
β
One of my cousins is named Lucifer. I once asked my aunt why and she said, "Because I wanted him to be beautiful and to think for himself.
β
β
Ilona Andrews (Magic Breaks (Kate Daniels, #7))
β
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 commit 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.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists)
β
Faustus: Stay, Mephistopheles, and tell me, what good will
my soul do thy lord?
Mephistopheles: Enlarge his kingdom.
Faustus: Is that the reason he tempts us thus?
Mephistopheles: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.
(It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery.)
β
β
Christopher Marlowe (Dr. Faustus)
β
Sometimes it comes down to a choice," Magnus said. "Between saving one person and saving the whole world. I've seen it happen, and I'm selfish enough to want the person who loves me to choose me. But Nephilim wil always choose the world. I look at Alec and I feel like Lucifer in Paradise Lost. 'Abashed the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is.' He meant it in the classical sense. 'Awful' as in inspiring awe. And awe is well and good, but it's poison to love. Love has to be between equals."
"He's just a boy," said Luke. "Alec--he's not perfect. And you're not fallen."
"We're all fallen," said Magnus, and he wrapped himself up in his chains and was silent.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
β
You say I have no power? Perhaps you speak truly... But β you say that dreams have no power here? Tell me, Lucifer Morningstar... Ask yourselves, all of you... What power would hell have if those imprisoned were not able to dream of heaven?
β
β
Neil Gaiman (Preludes & Nocturnes (The Sandman, #1))
β
This, this here, could be worship. βThisββ Lucifer pressed an innocent kiss to the princeβs sweet, divine mouth. This could be religion.
β
β
Rafael NicolΓ‘s (Angels Before Man)
β
They used to call the devil the father of lies. But for someone whose sin is meant to be pride, you'd think that lying would leave something of a sour taste. So my theory is that when the devil wants to get something out of you, he doesn't lie at all. He tells you the exact, literal truth. And he lets you find your own way to hell.
β
β
Mike Carey
β
You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,β said Miss Pross, in her breathing. βNevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.
β
β
Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)
β
Lucifer will be furious with you for failing, but it's not like he can do anything about it. Women don't always do what you want, even if you're Lord of the Underworld.
β
β
Trinity Faegen (The Redemption of Ajax (The Mephisto Covenant, #1))
β
Heaven's brightest and best-loved angel, who was cast out for inspiring a rebellion against God. Having lost Heaven, Lucifer and his rebel angels vowed to continue fighting here on earth."
"I don't understand why he had to fight. He was already in heaven."
"True. But he wasn't content to serve. He wanted more."
"He had all he could ask for, didn't he?" Ann asks.
"Exactly." Miss Moore states. "He had to ask. He was dependent upon someone else's whim. It's a terrible thing to have no power of one's own. To be denied.
β
β
Libba Bray (Rebel Angels)
β
Kneecaps only exist to get hit with claw-hammers; grace only exists to be fallen from.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
What does Γloa mean?β
He narrowed his gaze, answered her literally. βItβs the name of an angel.β
Penelope tilted her head, thinking. βIβve never heard of him.β
βYou wouldnβt have.β
βWas he a fallen angel?β
βShe was, yes.β He hesitated, not wanting to tell her the story, but unable to stop himself. βLucifer tricked her into falling from heaven.β
βTricked her how?β
He met her gaze. βShe fell in love with him.β
Penelopeβs eyes widened. βDid he love her?β
Like an addict loves his addiction. βThe only way he knew how.β
She shook her head. βHow could he trick her?β
βHe never told her his name.
β
β
Sarah MacLean (A Rogue by Any Other Name (The Rules of Scoundrels, #1))
β
Coffee justifies the existence of the word 'aroma'.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
All stories are lies. But good stories are lies made from light and fire. And they lift our hearts out of the dust, and out of the grave.
β
β
Mike Carey (Lucifer, Vol. 11: Evensong)
β
We are Morgensterns," he added, a dark ache in his voice. " The bright stars of morning. The children of Lucifer, the most beautiful of all God's angels. We are so much lovelier when we fall." He paused. "Look at me , Clary. Look at me.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
β
LADY LAZARUS
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
-- written 23-29 October 1962
β
β
Sylvia Plath (Ariel)
β
Suppose neutral angels were able to talk, Yahweh and Lucifer β God and Satan, to use their popular titles β into settling out of court. What would be the terms of the compromise? Specifically, how would they divide the assets of their early kingdom?
Would God be satisfied the loaves and fishes and itty-bitty thimbles of Communion wine, while Satan to have the red-eye gravy, eighteen-ounce New York Stakes, and buckets of chilled champagne? Would God really accept twice-a-month lovemaking for procreative purposes and give Satan the all night, no-holds-barred, nasty βcanβt-get-enough-of-youβ hot-as-hell-fucks?
Think about it. Would Satan get New Orleans, Bangkok, and the French Riviera and God get Salt Lake City? Satan get ice hockey, God get horseshoes? God get bingo, Satan get stud poker? Satan get LSD; God, Prozac? God get Neil Simon; Satan Oscar Wilde?
β
β
Tom Robbins
β
Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can kill you.
β
β
Philip G. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil)
β
Everyone has forgotten that Lucifer was beautiful too and God's favorite till he fell.
β
β
Nikita Gill (Fierce Fairytales: Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul)
β
Not entirely fair?" His voice became that of the inferno: a rushing, booming howl of icy evil that flew around the great cavern, as swift and cold as the Wendigo on skates. "I am Satan, also called Lucifer the Light Bearer..."
Cabal winced. What was it about devils that they always had to give you their whole family history?
"I was cast down from the presence of God himself into this dark, sulfurous pit and condemned to spend eternity here-"
"Have you tried saying sorry?" interrupted Cabal.
"No, I haven't! I was sent down for a sin of pride. It rather undermines my position if I say 'sorry'!
β
β
Jonathan L. Howard (Johannes Cabal the Necromancer (Johannes Cabal, #1))
β
Not even Lucifer left Heaven until he was pushed.
β
β
Peter Watts (Blindsight (Firefall, #1))
β
All beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.
β
β
Christopher Marlowe (Dr. Faustus)
β
One man's fish is another man's poisson.
β
β
Mark Gatiss (The Vesuvius Club (Lucifer Box, #1))
β
The question 'What was there before creation?' is meaningless. Time is a property of creation, therefore before creation there was no before creation.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
No, there are no special places in hell. Hell is a democracy.
β
β
Mike Carey (Lucifer, Vol. 2: Children and Monsters)
β
There's no such thing as evil for its own sake. All evil is motivated - even mine {Lucifer}.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
Lucifer's bouncing balls, Kitten, not again!"
Uh-oh. I squirmed, instinctively also trying to block Tony's body from his view. As if that made him any less dead.
"She was going to stab you," I said in my defense. "Look in her hand!"
He was looking at the ground near my feet instead. "Him, too?"
I nodded, sheepish. "He jumped me."
Bones just stared. "You're not a woman," he said finally. "You're the Grim Reaper with red hair!
β
β
Jeaniene Frost
β
Fear is the State's psychological weapon of choice to frighten citizens into sacrificing their basic freedoms and rule-of-law protections in exchange for the security promised by their all-powerful government.
β
β
Philip G. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil)
β
No evil ever came from a womanβs womb that wasnβt placed there first by a man.β... Tantie Neptune, Lucifer's Key by Charles A. Cornell, due 2013
β
β
Charles A Cornell
β
Lucifer was engraving Nateβs name on a cage right now.
β
β
Kelly Moran (In deinen Armen (Wildflower Summer #1))
β
Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), 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.
β
β
Saul D. Alinsky (Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals)
β
That would be like making a pact with Lucifer. (Zarek)
Yes, but I donβt smell like sulfur. And I happen to dress better. Luc always looks like a pimp. (Dionysus)
β
β
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Embrace (Dark-Hunter, #2))
β
Heβs sold his soul to Lucifer in return for sexual powers over frustrated virgins. It would explain a lot.
β
β
Leisa Rayven (Bad Romeo (Starcrossed, #1))
β
Whatβs your name, lad?β
βNewton. Newton Pulsifer.β
βLUCIFER? Whatβs that you say? Are ye of the Spawn of Darkness, a tempting beguiling creature from the pit, wanton limbs steaming from the fleshpots of Hades, in tortured and lubricious thrall to your Stygian and hellish masters?β
βThatβs Pulsifer,β explained Newton. βWith a P. I donβt know about the other stuff, but we come from Surrey.β
The voice on the phone sounded vaguely disappointed.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)
β
Thou art my father, thou my author, thou my being gav'st me; whom should I obey but thee, whom follow?
β
β
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
β
Lucifer: The million lords of hell stand arrayed about you. Tell us, why we should let you leave? Helmet or no, you have no power here - what power have dreams in Hell?
Dream: Tell me, Lucifer Morningstar [...] what power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?
β
β
Neil Gaiman
β
They believe themselves Lucifer's equals, Cain, all these pitiful little gnats. But there is only one that we have ever owned to be our superior. There is but one greater than us, and to him... to him we no longer speak.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists)
β
The only animal from which humans have nothing to learn, in fact, is the sheep. Humans have already learned everything the sheep's got to teach.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud β God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!
β
β
Arthur Miller (The Crucible)
β
Words betrayed her: beautiful butterflies in her mind; dead moths when she opened her mouth for their release into the world.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
For you, my darlings, freedom to do what you like is the discovery of how unlikable what you like to do makes you. Not that that stops you doing what you like, since you like doing what you like more than you like liking what you do...
[Lucifer]
β
β
Glen Duncan
β
They say love is blind...but it isn't. Love is perfect sight. Love is the ability to see a person, I mean really see him-his strengths, his weaknesses, his flaws, all his past triumphs and mistakes-and view that person not as the world says you're supposed to see him, but as you see him-as that special someone you know you will always embrace, body and soul, no matter what anyone else says or thinks
I know I can't tell anyone what I've been through. I know they wouldn't understand. They don't see him the way that I see him. All they know is the legend, the darkness. They don't know the inner beauty, the warmth and the joy more intense than anything I ever thought was possible to experience.
They don't know the truth behind the name.
My angel.
My only.
Lucifer.
β
β
Marlon Pierre-Antoine (Wandering Stars)
β
The most dramatic instances of directed behavior change and "mind control" are not the consequence of exotic forms of influence, such as hypnosis, psychotropic drugs, or "brainwashing," but rather the systematic manipulation of the most mundane aspects of human nature over time in confining settings.
β
β
Philip G. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil)
β
Very few people believe in the devil these days, which suits the devil very well. He is always helping to circulate the news of his own death. The essence of God is existence, and He defines Himself as: 'I am Who am.' The essence of the devil is the lie, and he defines himself as: 'I am who am not.' Satan has very little trouble with those who do not believe in him; they are already on his side.
β
β
Fulton J. Sheen (Life of Christ)
β
Well, what was I to do? For the well-bred gentleman there was clearly only one recourse. I fucked him.
β
β
Mark Gatiss (The Vesuvius Club (Lucifer Box, #1))
β
He who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it.
β
β
Paul Christopher (The Lucifer Gospel (Finn Ryan, #2))
β
I admire one to my left, the bronze sun is behind him as he falls, silhouetting him, immortalizing him in that singular momentβone I know I shall never forgetβso that he looks like a Miltonian angel falling with wrath and glory. His exoskeleton sheds its friction armor, as Lucifer might have shed the fetters of heaven, feathers of flame peeling off, fluttering behind. Then a missile slashes the sky and high-grade explosives christen him mortal once again.
β
β
Pierce Brown (Golden Son (Red Rising Saga, #2))
β
I cling unto the burning Γthyr like Lucifer that fell through the Abyss, and by the fury of his flight kindled the air.
And I am Belial, for having seen the Rose upon thy breast, I have denied God.
And I am Satan! I am Satan! I am cast out upon a burning crag! And the sea boils about the desolation thereof. And already the vultures gather, and feast upon my flesh.
β
β
Aleister Crowley (The Vision and the Voice: With Commentary and Other Papers (Equinox IV:2))
β
Peace is purchased in the currency of loss.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
My father's answer was revenge-has always been revenge-and the outcome was just, but not better. Nothing is fixed.
β
β
Brenna Yovanoff (The Space Between)
β
I have stared into the light and you are all my shadows.
β
β
Mike Carey (Lucifer, Vol. 5: Inferno)
β
We create our own hell, it is the sum of all our decisions - we are not sentenced, we condemn ourselves.
β
β
Gabrielle Estres (Captive)
β
Jerry-5486: "The most apparent thing that I noticed was how most of the people in this study derive their sense of identity and well-being from their immediate surroundings rather than from within themselves, and that's why they broke downβjust couldn't stand the pressureβthey had nothing within them to hold up against all of this.
β
β
Philip G. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil)
β
We are the centuries... We have your eoliths and your mesoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient impregnated) artifacts. We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do β Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris, telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve and a traveling salesman called Lucifer. We bury your dead and their reputations. We bury you. We are the centuries. Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeonβs slap, seek manhood, taste a little godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb: (Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.) Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens β and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isnβt the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH! β an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)
β
β
Walter M. Miller Jr. (A Canticle for Leibowitz (St. Leibowitz, #1))
β
How to describe hell? Disembowelled landscape busy with suffering, incessant heat, permanent scarlet twilight, a swirling snowfall of ash, the stink of pain and the din of...if only, hell is two things: the absence of God and the presence of time. Infinite variations on that theme. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Well, trust me.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
I'm in love, truly, madly, deeply in love with perception.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
Hell [...] is the absence of God and the presence of Time.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
I'll tell you something,' she said. 'I'm not sure I ever really liked him.'
Adam?' I said. 'I don't blame you.' 'Not Adam,' she said, struggling to swallow a greedily chomped chunk. 'God.
β
β
Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
β
You can tempt me, desert me, or cause me great pain; you can create a dark world that my cause me to fear; you can rule your world with blood and terror, that's true.
But you can't win. And I know that. Weak as I am, with my imperfections and sins, even with all of my failing, I am stronger than you.
I will soon have a body. And I have my agency now. I will increase in my faith and knowledge and power. I am not perfect, but I will be, and there's not a thing you can do! I will become like the Father if I follow the Son. You are powerless to stop me. You can threaten and tempt and whisper lies in my ear, but you can't stop me, Satan; I see that so clearly now! I can stop myslef, yes, but only if I follow you.
And I reject you temptations. I reject your whispered lies. I reject you, Lucifer, and your entire plan. You have no power to control me. I am in control of myself. And try as you might, you won't control me on earth. We will defeat you in heaven, and we will deafeat you on earth. Here, or the earth, it doesn't matter; I am always stronger than you.
β
β
Chris Stewart
β
They talk of me going around buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No. They belong to themselves...they just hate to face up to it.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists)
β
Evil consists in intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent othersβor using oneβs authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf. In short, it is βknowing better but doing worseβ.
β
β
Philip G. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil)
β
Before I knew that a man could kill a man, because it happens all the time. Now I know that even the person with whom you've shared food, or whom you've slept, even he can kill you with no trouble. The closest neighbor can kill you with his teeth: that is what I have Learned since the genocide, and my eyes no longer gaze the same on the face of the world.
β
β
Philip G. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect)
β
I thought that what I felt for you was right," Luce said. "I loved you until it hurt me, until our love was consumed by your pride and rage. The thing you called love made me disappear. So I had to stop loving." She Paused. "Our adoration never diminished the Throne, but your love diminished me. I never meant to hurt you. I only meant to stop you from hurting me.
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Lauren Kate (Rapture (Fallen, #4))
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I'm supposed to be guilty of all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors, but when you get right down to it, I'm really only guilty of one: wondering. The road to Hell, you say, is paved with good intentions. Charming. But actually it's paved with intriguing questions. You want to know. Man do you want to know.
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Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
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We don't worship Satan, we worship ourselves using the metaphorical representation of the qualities of Satan. Satan is the name used by Judeo-Christians for that force of individuality and pride within us. But the force itself has been called by many names.We embrace Christian myths of Satan and Lucifer, along with Satanic renderings in Greek, Roman, Islamic, Sumerian, Syrian, Phrygian, Egyptian, Chinese or Hindu mythologies, to name but a few. We are not limited to one deity, but encompass all the expressions of the accuser or the one who advocates free thought and rational alternatives by whatever name he is called in a particular time and land. It so happens that we are living in a culture that is predominantly Judeo-Christian, so we emphasize Satan. If we were living in Roman times, the central figure, perhaps the title of our religion, would be different. But the name would be expressing and communicating the same thing. It's all context.
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Anton Szandor LaVey (The Secret Life of a Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton LaVey)
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She understood the genre constraints, the decencies were supposed to be observing. The morally cosy vision allows the embrace of monstrosity only as a reaction to suffering or as an act of rage against the Almighty. Vampire interviewee Louis is in despair at his brotherβs death when he accepts Lestatβs offer. Frankensteinβs creature is driven to violence by the violence done to him. Even Luciferβs rebellion emerges from the agony of injured price. The message is clear: By all means become an abominationβbut only while unhinged by grief or wrath.
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Glen Duncan (The Last Werewolf (The Last Werewolf, #1))
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It is, you must concede, unpleasantly messy, this business of having feelings, this mattering to each other. I've always thought of it as gory, a sort of perpetually occurring road accident - everyone going too fast, too close, without due care and attention, or with too much . . .
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Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
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This is where you first failed us. You gave us minds and told us not to think. You gave us curiosity and put a booby-trapped tree right in front of us. You gave us sex and told us not to do it. You played three-card monte with our souls from day one, and when we couldn't find the queen, you sent us to Hell to be tortured for eternity. That was your great plan for humanity? All you gave us here was daisies and fairy tales and you acted like that was enough. How were we supposed to resist evil when you didn't even tell us about it?
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Richard Kadrey (Aloha from Hell (Sandman Slim, #3))
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I know what the majority of you think about all this. All this sex and money and drugs. You think: people who live like that never end up happy. You need to think that in just the way men with small penises need to think size doesn't matter. It's understandable. The rich, the famous, the big-dicked, the slim-and-gorgeous - they can incite an envy so urgent that you can escape it only by translating it into pity. People who live like that never end up happy. Yes, you're right. But neither do you. And in the meantime, they've had all the sex and drugs and money.
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Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
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Majority decisions tend to be made without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills of the individuals in the group. Given the force of the group's normative power to shape the opinions of the followers who conform without thinking things through, they are often taken at face value. The persistent minority forces the others to process the relevant information more mindfully. Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.
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Philip G. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil)
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[W]e conceive the Devil as a necessary part of a respectable view of cosmology. Ours is a divided empire in which certain ideas and emotions and actions are of God, and their opposites are of Lucifer. It is as impossible for most men to conceive of a morality without sin as of an earth without 'sky'. Since 1692 a great but superficial change has wiped out God's beard and the Devil's horns, but the world is still gripped between two diametrically opposed absolutes. The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon - such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas.
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Arthur Miller (The Crucible)
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Yes, Eden was beautiful- and if I had to squeeze through corporeal keyholes to crash it- so be it. (Hasnβt it bothered you, this part of the story, my being there, I mean? What was I doing there? βPresume not the ways of God to scan,β youβve been told in umpteen variations, βthe proper study of Mankind is Man.β Maybe so, but what, excuse me, was the Devil doing in Eden?) I took the forms of animals. I found I could. (Thatβs generally my reason for doing something, by the way, because I find I can.)
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Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)
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Sorry, I got hung up or Iβd have been here earlier. I made sure I made it for closing, though. I didnβt want the streets to suffer if you walked alone.β
A glance at him showed his lips twitching. Humor, a new facet to my knight in leather armor; one I liked, given my oftentimes sarcastic attitude towards life. He wore the same leather duster of the previous evening, and, once again, I enviously admired it. Unable to resist, I reached out a hand and stroked its supple surface, feeling a thrill that my hand strayed so close to his actual body. βItβs so soft,β I murmured.
βNot for long, if you keep stroking it,β he drawled.
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Eve Langlais (Lucifer's Daughter (Princess of Hell, #1))
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Our personal identities are socially situated. We are where we live, eat, work, and make love. [...]
Our sense of identity is in large measure conferred on us by others in the ways they treat or mistreat us, recognize or ignore us, praise us or punish us. Some people make us timid and shy; others elicit our sex appeal and dominance. In some groups we are made leaders, while in others we are reduced to being followers. We come to live up to or down to the expectations others have of us. The expectations of others often become self-fulfilling prophecies. Without realizing it, we often behave in ways that confirm the beliefs others have about us. Those subjective beliefs create new realities for us. We often become who other people think we are, in their eyes and in our behavior.
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Philip G. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil)
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So sweet is this song that no one could resist it. For in it is all the passionate ache for the moonlight, and the great hunger of the sea, and the terror of desolate places,βall things that lure men to the unattainable.
Omari tessala marax,
tessala dodi phornepax
amri radara poliax
armana piliu
amri radara piliu son;
mari narya barbiton
madara anaphax sarpedon
andala hriliu
Translation:
I am the harlot that shaketh Death.
This shaking giveth the Peace of Satiate Lust.
Immortality jetteth from my skull,
And music from my vulva.
Immortality jetteth from my vulva also,
For my Whoredom is a sweet scent like a seven-stringed instrument,
Played unto God the Invisible, the all-ruler,
That goeth along giving the shrill scream of orgasm.
Every man that hath seen me forgetteth me never, and I appear oftentimes in the coals of the fire, and upon the smooth white skin of woman, and in the constancy of the waterfall, and in the emptiness of deserts and marshes, and upon great cliffs that look seaward; and in many strange places, where men seek me not. And many thousand times he beholdeth me not. And at last I smite myself into him as a vision smiteth into a stone, and whom I call must follow.
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Aleister Crowley (The Vision and the Voice: With Commentary and Other Papers (Equinox IV:2))
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My belief is that, morally, God and Satan are vaguely on the same page. According to the common understanding of Satan's origins, 'holiness' is, metaphorically, frozen stiff in his veins: and at that a corrupted formula - i.e. legalism. The vital difference is that God is willing to offer grace for our sins; he delights in grace. God is the one and only holy and just punisher of sin, yes, but that is partly so because punishment for the sake of punishment is not something he loves. Whereas Satan, as the accuser, and as it is written, actually seeks God's permission to punish; he, being a seasoned legalist, delights in finding wrongs and will defy his own morality just to expose immorality. This is why both the anti-religious soul and the violently religious soul are, whether consciously or unconsciously, and sadly enough, glorifying their biggest hater: Satan is not only a lawless lover of punishing lawlessness, but also the sharpest theologian of us all. He loves wickedness, but only because he loves punishing wickedness.
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Criss Jami (Healology)