Witchcraft Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Witchcraft. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.
Neil Gaiman
Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.
Terry Pratchett (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)
Not all girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice. Some are made of witchcraft and wolf and a little bit of vice.
Nikita Gill
She heard him mutter, 'Can you take away this grief?' 'I'm sorry,' she replied. 'Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.
Terry Pratchett (I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld, #38; Tiffany Aching, #4))
A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.
Terry Pratchett (Wintersmith (Discworld, #35; Tiffany Aching, #3))
She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used.
William Shakespeare (Othello)
The familiar male’s gaze snagged on her. “What’s her business here?” Nesta gave him a secretive smile. “Witchcraft.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
The first time I called myself a 'Witch' was the most magical moment of my life.
Margot Adler (Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America)
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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
You have witchcraft in your lips, there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs.
William Shakespeare (Henry V)
Those who pray for your downfall are concentrating negative thoughts towards you, without taking cognisance of the slippery ground in which they are standing, which could lead to their downfall.
Michael Bassey Johnson
The thing about witchcraft," said Mistress Weatherwax, "is that it's not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterward you spend years findin' out how you passed it. It's a bit like life in that respect
Terry Pratchett (The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1))
First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.
Terry Pratchett (A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32; Tiffany Aching, #2))
Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is 'Don't do what you will, do what I say.' The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.
Terry Pratchett (Witches Abroad (Discworld, #12; Witches, #3))
We are the blood of the witches you thought were dead. We carry witchcraft in our bones whilst magic still sings inside out heads. When the witch hunters imprisoned out ancestors when they tried to burn the magic away. Someone should have warned them that magic cannot be tamed. Because you cannot burn away what has always been aflame.
Nikita Gill
An old alchemist gave the following consolation to one of his disciples: “No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.
C.G. Jung
What, I wondered, did he mean by “society”? The plural of human beings? Where was the substance of this thing called “society”? I had spent my whole life thinkng that society must certainly be something powerful, harsh and severe, but to hear Horiki talk made the words “Don’t you mean yourself?” come to the tip of my tongue. But I held the words back, reluctant to anger him. ‘Society won’t stand for it.’ ‘It’s not society. You’re the one who won’t stand for it - right?’ ‘If you do such a thing society will make you suffer for it’ ‘It’s not society. It’s you, isn’t it?’ ‘Before you know it, you’ll be ostracized by society.’ ‘It’s not society. You’re going to do the ostracizing, aren’t you?’ Words, words of every kind went flitting through my head. “Know thy particular fearsomeness, thy knavery, cunning and witchcraft!” What I said, however, as I wiped the perspiration from my face with a handkerchief was merely, “You’ve put me in a cold sweat!” I smiled. From then on, however, I came to hold, almost as a philosophical conviction, the belief: What is society but an individual?
Osamu Dazai (No Longer Human)
Women always think that when they have my shoes, my dress my hairdresser, my make-up, it will work the same way. They do not conceive of the witchcraft that is needed. They do not know that I am not beautiful but that I only appear to be at certain moments.
Anaïs Nin (Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1932)
These are girls made of dark lace and witchcraft and a little bit of vice.
Nikita Gill (Fierce Fairytales: Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul)
We will paste upon the curled pages words Like charming and romantic and sentimental Forgetting that charming is witchcraft Romantic is love And sentiment is what makes us human
Emilie Autumn (Your Sugar Sits Untouched)
Witchcraft to the ignorant, .... Simple science to the learned.
Leigh Brackett
I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. Beside me, my husband's pulse beats at his throat; in their beds, my children's skin shows every faintest scratch. A breeze would blow them over, and the world is filled with more than breezes: diseases and disasters, monsters and pain in a thousand variations. I do not forget either my father and his kind hanging over us, bright and sharp as swords, aimed at our tearing flesh. If they do not fall on us in spite and malice, then they will fall by accident or whim. My breath fights in my throat. How can I live on beneath such a burden of doom? I rise then and go to my herbs. I create something, I transform something. My witchcraft is as strong as ever, stronger. This too is good fortune. How many have such power and leisure and defense as I do? Telemachus comes from our bed to find me. He sits with me in the greensmelling darkness, holding my hand. Our faces are both lined now, marked with our years. Circe, he says, it will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. They are words you might speak to a child. I have heard him say them to our daughters, when he rocked them back to sleep from a nightmare, when he dressed their small cuts, soothed whatever stung. His skin is familiar as my own beneath my fingers. I listen to his breath, warm upon the night air, and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean it does not hurt. He does not mean we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.
Madeline Miller (Circe)
Witchcraft was hung, in History, But History and I Find all the Witchcraft that we need Around us, every Day -
Emily Dickinson
Witches listen to the secrets of the Earth, work in harmony with the powers of the moon and understand the longings of the human soul.
Dacha Avelin
As a girl, I used to believe that I could see and taste the air. I was TOLD that was impossible and forgot how to do so.
Silver RavenWolf (A Witch's Notebook: Lessons in Witchcraft)
Never mix vodka and witchcraft
Erin Sterling (The Ex Hex (The Ex Hex, #1))
witchcraft isn’t one thing but many things, all the ways and words women have found to wreak their wills on the world.
Alix E. Harrow (The Once and Future Witches)
Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more the frown o' the great; Thou art past the tyrant's stroke: Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finished joy and moan; All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust. No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Ghost unlaid forbear thee! Nothing ill come near thee! Quiet consummation have; And renownéd be thy grave!
William Shakespeare (Cymbeline)
I am a gluttonous, gorging failure. A waste. My body isn’t used to high-sugar carbs laced with witchcraft. It can barely cope with soup and crackers.
Laurie Halse Anderson (Wintergirls)
I did start out in witchcraft to get boys, to tell you the truth.' 'Think I don't know that?' 'What did you start out to get, Esme?' Granny stopped, and looked up at the frosty sky and then down at the ground. 'Dunno,' she said at last.'Even, I suppose.
Terry Pratchett (A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction)
The power of beauty Lies within our soul And how we choose To see everything It is not found from The strokes of a make-up brush Nor the acceptance from others
Apple Blossom (My Bath My Cauldron)
Women who did what they liked instead of what other people wished were often accused of witchcraft, because only a witch would be so defiant, or so it was thought.
Christina Henry (The Mermaid)
A Witch is a person who has honestly explored their light and has evolved to celebrate their darkness.
Dacha Avelin
Some of the best advice you will ever hear will come from the forest.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Witches do not need to fix problems. Witches fix the enegery AROUND problems. Then the problems fix themselves.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
I'm not the one who's so far away When I feel the snake bite enter my veins. Never did I wanna be here again, And I don't remember why I came.
Sully Erna
In this lifetime we are like Superman who must remain disguised as the nerdy newspaper journalist Clark Kent, or Harry Potter and his friends who are not allowed to do magic while they are on holiday, away from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry... but even Harry Potter and Clark Kent get to tap into their ‘special powers’ once in a while, especially when the going gets tough.
Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
There's a big difference on being wise and being crafty. The former is the attribute of God, and the latter is that of Satan.
Michael Bassey Johnson
You see, when medicine works, it is blessed science, and when it fails, it is witchcraft. - Polidori
Kenneth Oppel (This Dark Endeavor (The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein, #1))
[Y]ou weren't born with a talent for witchcraft: it didn't come easily; you worked hard at it because you wanted it. You forced the world to give it to you, no matter the price, and the price is and always will be high... People say you don't find witchcraft; witchcraft finds you. But you've found it, even if at the time you didn't know what it was you were finding, and you grabbed it by its scrawny neck and made it work for you.
Terry Pratchett (I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld, #38; Tiffany Aching, #4))
When you start to notice the mystical, the mystical will start to notice you.
Dacha Avelin
Magick happens when you step into who you truly are and embrace that which fulfills your soul.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
All cats are gray in the dark. And besides, her actions have less to do with her, and everything to do with you.
Jaye Frances (The Kure)
But, my dear, so few things are fulfilled: what are most lives but a series of incompleted episodes? 'We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task...' It is wanting to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least, in something.
Truman Capote (Other Voices, Other Rooms)
Witchcraft had once been widely used before cursed by the society. I see today the society presumes technology will have a different treatment.
Toba Beta (Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza)
She learned quickly that it was not good to be too different. Great differences caused envy, suspicion, fear, charges of witchcraft.
Octavia E. Butler (Wild Seed (Patternmaster, #1))
The logic behind magic is that we create what we are imagining.
Mary Faulkner (The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Women's Spirituality)
Matthew kept hinting that his desire - for blood, chiefly- was so strong that it put everything else at risk. But vampires weren’t the only creatures who had to manage such strong impulses. Much of what qualified as magic was simply desire in action. Witchcraft was different- that took spells and rituals. But magic? A wish, a need, a hunger too strong to be denied- these could turn into deeds when they cross a witch’s mind.
Deborah Harkness (A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1))
Could you tell me how to grow--or is it unconveyed--like Melody--or Witchcraft?
Emily Dickinson
That's something the kids should know about. Reading is a gateway to witchcraft and lesbianism.
Al Yankovic
...that witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits, or magic wands. Language upon a silver tongue affords enchantment enough.
Salman Rushdie (The Enchantress of Florence)
Mistress Weatherwax is the head witch, then, is she?’ 'Oh no!’ said Miss Level, looking shocked. 'Witches are all equal. We don’t have things like head witches. That’s quite against the spirit of witchcraft.’ 'Oh, I see,’ said Tiffany. 'Besides,’ Miss Level added, 'Mistress Weatherwax would never allow that sort of thing.
Terry Pratchett (A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32; Tiffany Aching, #2))
Just because you don't believe it[] [...]doesn't mean that it's not true.
Katherine Howe (The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (The Physick Book, #1))
Death is but a doorway to another path.
Joyce Lavene (Looking for Mr. Good Witch (Retired Witches Mystery, #2))
May your glass always be full, may there always be a roof over your head, and may you dirty sinners be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you're dead.
Jason Jack Miller (HELLBENDER)
It was not hard to believe a beautiful woman capable of murder, Margret thought.As it says in the sagas, Opt er flago i fogru skinni. A witch often has fair skin.
Hannah Kent (Burial Rites)
That there is a Devil, is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil.
Cotton Mather (On Witchcraft (Dover Occult))
Who knows why we were taught to Fear the Witches And not those that burned them Or those who stood by, watching.
Affinity Soul
Now that’s what I call magic—seein’ all that, dealin’ with all that, and still goin’ on. It’s sittin’ up all night with some poor old man who’s leavin’ the world, taking away such pain as you can, comfortin’ their terror, seein’ ‘em safely on their way…and then cleanin’ ‘em up, layin’ ‘em out, making ‘em neat for the funeral, and helpin’ the weeping widow strip the bed and wash the sheets—which is, let me tell you, no errand for the fainthearted—and stayin’ up the next night to watch over the coffin before the funeral, and then going home and sitting down for five minutes before some shouting angry man comes bangin’ on your door ‘cuz his wife’s havin’ difficulty givin’ birth to their first child and the midwife’s at her wits’ end and then getting up and fetching your bag and going out again…We all do that, in our own way, and she does it better’n me, if I was to put my hand on my heart. That is the root and heart and soul and center of witchcraft, that is. The soul and center!
Terry Pratchett (A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32; Tiffany Aching, #2))
Little by little I began to listen better: to the sap moving in the plants, to the blood in my veins. I learned to understand my own intention, to prune and to add, to feel where the power gathered and speak the right words to draw it to its height. That was the moment I lived for, when it all came clear at last and the spell could sing with its pure note, for me and me alone.
Madeline Miller (Circe)
Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts. “Harry Potter must stay where he is safe. He is too great, too good, to lose. If Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts, he will be in mortal danger.” “Why?” said Harry in surprise. “There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year.
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2))
Not all girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice. These are girls made of dark lace and witchcraft and a little bit of vice. These are daughters made claw first and story-mad, tiger roar and wolf-bad. These are women made of terrible tempests and savage storms and the untamed unwanted. These are damsels made of flawless fearlessness made of more bravery than knights have ever seen. These are princesses made of valour and poison alike and they are here to hold court as your queens.
Nikita Gill
Every spell is a journey.
Lawren Leo (Love's Shadow: Nine Crooked Paths)
When a person assumes that his or her revelation is the only true one, it only says that this person has had very few religious revelations and hasn't realized how many there are.
Margot Adler (Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America)
Magick is an art; using reality and the world as its canvas.
Dacha Avelin (Old World Witchcraft: Pathway To Effective Magick)
Faith aside, witchcraft served an eminently useful purpose. The aggravating, the confounding, the humiliating all dissolved in its cauldron. It made sense of the unfortunate and the eerie, the sick child and the rancid butter along with the killer cat. What else, shrugged one husband, could have caused the black and blue marks on his wife’s arm?
Stacy Schiff (The Witches: Salem, 1692)
Wolves are the witches of the animal world.
Katherine Rundell (The Wolf Wilder)
Spells are just prayers with more steps and a name that scares people.
Lily Anderson (Undead Girl Gang)
Where once I prayed for forgiveness from a father God who held up huge palms and said “Thou shalt not,” now I find peace with a sister god who takes my open hands in hers and says, “You will.
Betsy Cornwell
Once upon a time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet, and the other a fool, which visitation, all the neighbourhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of witchcraft.
Walter Scott (Waverley)
A witch does not need to fix problems. She fixes the energy AROUND problems. Then the problems fix themselves…
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Not every winged Creature is considered a bird or a bat. Some wings are made of magic. - Raani York – 2013 -
Raani York (Dragonbride)
Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard. “Er…aren’t you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?” said her mother, who’d never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about. “No, Mum, I’m supposed not to,” said Tiffany, still scrubbing. “But can’t you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?” “The trouble is getting the magic to understand what dirt is,” said Tiffany, scrubbing hard at a stain. “I heard of a witch over in Escrow who got it wrong and ended up losing the entire floor and her sandals and nearly a toe.” Mrs. Aching backed away. “I thought you just had to wave your hands about,” she mumbled nervously. “That works,” said Tiffany, “but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush.
Terry Pratchett (Wintersmith (Discworld, #35; Tiffany Aching, #3))
Don't show a friend your gift, or your bag of money if you still want to maintain your relationship, but if nay, go on, and all you'll see is hate and jealousy, and you'll fight with him in the street like a dog and all you'll feel is regret.
Michael Bassey Johnson
You are the most powerful tool in your life. Use your energy, your thoughts and your magick wisely!
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
My heart is so much more than it once was, even if it now beats outside my chest.
Genevieve Gornichec (The Witch's Heart)
She’d tell her daughters someday: ‘If you don’t feel safe enough to yell back, you’re not safe enough. My babies, that is not love.
Emery Lord (Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft)
They say I should stay away from you,” I said. “They said you’re not good for me.” “I’m not,” he said with a wicked smile, “But doesn’t that make it even more fun?
Kassandra Cross (Black Magic)
This is the gateway to Hell, baby… Welcome to The Underworld.
Kassandra Cross (Black Magic)
I was a golden witch, who had no past at all.
Madeline Miller (Circe)
A wise witch knows the shadows come from the light.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
People claimed witches were nightmares, dreams, but Eva felt they were closer to plants; wild magic grew inside of each of them, waiting to be harvested in the strands of their hair, their salt tears, their spit and blood.
Alicia Jasinska (The Dark Tide)
By Hecate, the goddess I worship more than all the others, the one I choose to help me in this work, who lives with me deep inside my home, these people won't bring pain into my heart and laugh about it.
Euripides
Were I to go down into the market-place, armed with the powers of witchcraft, and take a peasant by the shoulders and whisper to him, 'In your lifetime, have you known peace?' wait for his answer, shake his shoulders and transform him into his father, and ask him the same question, and transform him in his turn to his father, I would never hear the word 'Yes,' if I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years. I would always hear, 'No, there was fear, there were our enemies without, our rulers within, there was prison, there was torture, there was violent death.
Rebecca West (Black Lamb and Grey Falcon)
Most people know intuitively that when you fall in love, the world is full of magic. What they don't know is that when you discover the universe is full of magic, you fall in love with the world.
Phyllis Curott (Book of Shadows: A Modern Woman's Journey into the Wisdom of Witchcraft and the Magic of the Goddess)
Are you sure that’s a real spell?’ said the girl. ‘Well, it’s not very good, is it? I’ve tried a few simple spells just for practice and its all worked for me. Nobody in my family’s magic at all. It was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard – I’ve learnt all our set books off by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough – I’m Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?’ She said all this very fast. Harry looked at Ron, and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn’t learned all the course books by heart either. ‘I’m Ron Weasley,’ Ron muttered. ‘Harry Potter,’ said Harry. ‘Are you really?’ said Hermione. ‘I know all about you, of course – I got a few extra books for background reading, and you’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.’ ‘Am I?’ said Harry, feeling dazed. ‘Goodness, didn’t you know, I’d have found out everything I could if it was me,’ said Hermione.
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
A witch is wise. She has earned her wisdom. She has learned to love her shadows and has grown more beautiful because of it. She has proven she can stand comfortably within her powers. She has become the true embodiment of a witch.
Dacha Avelin
Samhain is the threshold to the Season of Death. The fertile fields of summer give way to the bare forests of autumn. As crops slowly die and winter takes over, the cycle of life is once again approaching a renewal.
Dacha Avelin
You see, the future is a kind of stew, a soup, a vichyssoise of the present and the past. That's how you get the future: You mix up everything you did today with everything you did yesterday and all the days before and everything everyone you ever met did and anyone they ever met, too. And salt and lizard and pearl and umbrellas and typewriters and a lot of other things I'm not at liberty to tell you, because I took vows, and a witch's vows have teeth. Magic is funny like that. It's not a linear thinker. The point is if you mash it all up together and you have a big enough pot and you're very good at witchcraft, you can wind up with a cauldron full of tomorrow.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
I have always been interested in witchcraft and superstition, but have never had much traffic with ghosts, so I began asking people everywhere what they thought about such things, and I began to find out that there was one common factor - most people have never seen a ghost, and never want or expect to, but almost everyone will admit that sometimes they have a sneaking feeling that they just possibly could meet a ghost if they weren't careful - if they were to turn a corner too suddenly, perhaps, or open their eyes too soon when they wake up at night, or go into a dark room without hesitating first.
Shirley Jackson (Come Along With Me)
Human intellectual progress, such as it has been, results from our long struggle to see things 'as they are,' or in the most universally comprehensible way, and not as projections of our own emotions. Thunder is not a tantrum in the sky, disease is not a divine punishment, and not every death or accident results from witchcraft. What we call the Enlightenment and hold on to only tenuously, by our fingernails, is the slow-dawning understanding that the world is unfolding according to its own inner algorithms of cause and effect, probability and chance, without any regard for human feelings.
Barbara Ehrenreich (Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America)
There is no such thing as White Magick or Black Magick. If you are participating in magick, you are interfering with the natural order of how life would have developed without your hand in it. You are manipulating reality to suit your own personal needs. Regardless of whether you perceive it as "positive" or "white light", you are manipulating life. If you are afraid of this responsibly or are intimidated by this statement, I encourage you to reexamine your belief structure. Witchcraft requires confidence and courage.
Dacha Avelin (Old World Witchcraft: Pathway To Effective Magick)
A witch is someone who has dedicated her life to learning about the connections between things. She studies the different cycles and her place in them. She learns how to use the energy in herself and in the world to make changes. And most of all, she tries to make the world a better place for herself and other people.
Isobel Bird (The Challenge Box (Circle of Three, #14))
The trial of Jesus of Nazareth, the trial and rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, any one of the witchcraft trials in Salem during 1691, the Moscow trials of 1937 during which Stalin destroyed all of the founders of the 1924 Soviet REvolution, the Sacco-Vanzetti trial of 1920 through 1927- there are many trials such as these in which the victim was already condemned to death before the trial took place, and it took place only to cover up the real meaning: the accused was to be put to death. These are trials in which the judge, the counsel, the jury, and the witnesses are the criminals, not the accused. For any believer in capital punishment, the fear of an honest mistake on the part of all concerned is cited as the main argument against the final terrible decision to carry out the death sentence. There is the frightful possibility in all such trials as these that the judgement has already been pronounced and the trial is just a mask for murder.
Katherine Anne Porter (The Never-Ending Wrong)
Most people live their lives laying prostrate before a false god, waiting for a cue to rise. There are no cues, only decisions. Shall I have dessert? Shall I have the best of the wine? Shall I love the person next to me? They can all be brought to your table. Rise, I say, rise and look within to the truth, to the light, and tell it your decision.
Lawren Leo (Love's Shadow: Nine Crooked Paths)
Every woman is never enough; she's always too much. We angered someone, somewhere, for our too muchness. If to be too much is to be a witch, then I am a witch, and we are all witches. I told this to the other girls, and I heard them all whisper back yes, because to be a witch means our too muchness serves a purpose: it gives us power.
Elizabeth May (Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft)
After the longest night, tomorrow we sing up the dawn. There is a rejoicing that, even in the darkest time, the sun is not vanquished. As of tomorrow, the days begin to get longer as the light of day grows. While the gentle winter sun slowly opens its eyes, let us all bring more light and compassion into the world. 
Dacha Avelin
Witch' is just a religion, okay? No baby-sacrificing, no Black Masses, no sending imps out to scare the dog-snot out of kids, trying to make them think they're crazy. We don't do things like that. Our number-one law is 'Have fun in this lifetime, but don't hurt anybody.' Nice little paraphrase of "An it harm none, do as ye will" if I do say so myself.
Mercedes Lackey (Jinx High (Diana Tregarde, #3))
This to hear Would Desdemona seriously incline: But still the house-affairs would draw her thence: Which ever as she could with haste dispatch, She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear Devour up my discourse: which I observing, Took once a pliant hour, and found good means To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, Whereof by parcels she had something heard, But not intentively: I did consent, And often did beguile her of her tears, When I did speak of some distressful stroke That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs: She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful: She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me, And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story. And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake: She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd, And I loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used: Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
William Shakespeare (Othello)
The problem is that moderates of all faiths are committed to reinterpreting, or ignoring outright, the most dangerous and absurd parts of their scripture—and this commitment is precisely what makes them moderates. But it also requires some degree of intellectual dishonesty, because moderates can’t acknowledge that their moderation comes from outside the faith. The doors leading out of the prison of scriptural literalism simply do not open from the inside. In the twenty-first century, the moderate’s commitment to scientific rationality, human rights, gender equality, and every other modern value—values that, as you say, are potentially universal for human beings—comes from the past thousand years of human progress, much of which was accomplished in spite of religion, not because of it. So when moderates claim to find their modern, ethical commitments within scripture, it looks like an exercise in self-deception. The truth is that most of our modern values are antithetical to the specific teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And where we do find these values expressed in our holy books, they are almost never best expressed there. Moderates seem unwilling to grapple with the fact that all scriptures contain an extraordinary amount of stupidity and barbarism that can always be rediscovered and made holy anew by fundamentalists—and there’s no principle of moderation internal to the faith that prevents this. These fundamentalist readings are, almost by definition, more complete and consistent—and, therefore, more honest. The fundamentalist picks up the book and says, “Okay, I’m just going to read every word of this and do my best to understand what God wants from me. I’ll leave my personal biases completely out of it.” Conversely, every moderate seems to believe that his interpretation and selective reading of scripture is more accurate than God’s literal words. Presumably, God could have written these books any way He wanted. And if He wanted them to be understood in the spirit of twenty-first-century secular rationality, He could have left out all those bits about stoning people to death for adultery or witchcraft. It really isn’t hard to write a book that prohibits sexual slavery—you just put in a few lines like “Don’t take sex slaves!” and “When you fight a war and take prisoners, as you inevitably will, don’t rape any of them!” And yet God couldn’t seem to manage it. This is why the approach of a group like the Islamic State holds a certain intellectual appeal (which, admittedly, sounds strange to say) because the most straightforward reading of scripture suggests that Allah advises jihadists to take sex slaves from among the conquered, decapitate their enemies, and so forth.
Sam Harris (Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue)