The devil, whose business is to pervert the truth, mimics the exact circumstance of the Divine Sacraments. He baptises his believers and promises forgiveness of sins ... He celebrates the oblation of bread, and brings in the symbol of resurrection. Let us therefore acknowledge the craftiness of the devil, who copied certain things of those that be Divine. Tertullian, 155-222 A.D. from Prescription Against Heretics chXL
The Devil is this serpent Satan. He is life and love. He is light and his zodiacal image is Capricornus, the leaping goat, the godhead. Aleister Crowley, Magic
The devil is now called Darkness by the Church, whereas in the Bible he is called the Son of God (see Job), the bright star of the early morning, Lucifer (see Isaiah). There is a whole philosophy of dogmatic craft in the reason why the first Archangel, who sprang from the depths of Chaos, was called Lux (Lucifer), the Luminous Son of the Morning, or man-vantaric Dawn. He was transformed by the Church into Lucifer or Satan, because he is higher and older than Jehovah, and had to be sacrificed to the new dogma. Madame Helena Blavatsky
Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face. Nelson DeMille
Talk of the devil, and his horns appear. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
May the devil make a ladder of your backbone – while he is picking apples in the garden of Hell. Irish toast
The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind. John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1:34
Him the almighty power
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down. ibid. 1:44
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe. ibid. 1:63
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate
And courage never to submit or yield. ibid. 1:105
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair. ibid. 1:126
To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight. ibid. 1:159
And out of good still to find means of evil. ibid. 1:165
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair. ibid. 1:190
The will
And high permission of all-ruling heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation. ibid. 1:211
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, or a Hell of Heav’n. ibid. 1:255-256
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n. ibid. 1:263 Lucifer’s soliloquy
From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer’s day; and with the setting sun
Dropped from the zenith like a falling star. ibid. 1:742
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence. ibid. 2:5
His truth was with the eternal to be deemed
Equal in strength, and rather than be less
Cared not to be at all. ibid. 2:46
With grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic though in ruin. ibid. 2:300
To sit in darkness here
Hatching vain empires. ibid. 2:377
All hope is lost
Of my reception into grace; what worse?
For where no hope is left, is left no fear;
If there be worse, the expectation more
Of worse torments me then the feeling can.
I would be at the worst; worst is my Port,
My harbour and my ultimate repose,
The end I would attain, my final good. ibid.
So on this windy sea of land, the fiend
Walked up and down alone bent on his prey. ibid. 3:440
Warring in heaven against heaven’s matchless king. ibid. 4:41
Me miserable! Which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell. ibid. 4:73
Farewell remorse! All good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good. ibid. 4:109
Satan, so call him now, his former name
Is heard no more in heaven. ibid.
He hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn. ibid. 10:506
Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy
And moonstruck madness. ibid. 11:485
That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a Devil must be from an ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical. Cotton Mather, The Wonders of the Invisible World, 1693
A symbol of the infinite and eternal godhead, a mongrel word [Yah-bul-on] whose name has been for two thousand years an appellation of the devil. Albert Pike
The Mason is familiar with the doctrine that the supreme being is a centre of light ... Lucifer the light bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer the Son of the morning! Is it he who bears the light and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual or selfish souls? Doubt it not ... A devil, the fallen Lucifer or light bearer ... So you may repeat it to the brethren ... The Masonic religion should be of all us initiates of the higher degrees maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine. Yes, Lucifer is God. And the true and pure religion is the belief in Lucifer. Albert Pike, Morals and Dogmas @ p321 & 324
We worship the god, but it is the god that one adores without superstition. To you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General, we say this: that ye may repeat it to the brethren of the 30th, 31st and 32nd degrees – the Masonic religion should be the Luciferian doctrine. Lucifer is God. The true and pure philosophic religion is the belief in Lucifer. Albert Pike’s Instructions to twenty-three Scottish Rites Supreme Councils throughout the world, 14th July 1889
Because the devil is a supernatural and powerful being, if you make an agreement with him he can do remarkable things for you. So the idea of a pact with the devil is that you want supernatural powers. You want something he can offer you and you make a trade. When you make a pact with Satan the price is your soul. Elaine Pagels, author The Origin of Satan
Does the devil really exist? More than 70% of all Americans believe that he does. And a third of them fear his power will ultimately consume the world. Biblical prophecies predict Satan will seize power in what is known as the end times. Nostradamus Effect: Satan’s Army, History 2009
Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Beast, Satan: he has been called many names, he has taken many strange and different forms. The History of the Devil, 2007
Zoroaster reduced the whole complicated cast of characters to two. ibid.
Hades wasn’t very likeable but he wasn’t very evil either. ibid.
The Beast could refer to the Roman Emperor himself. ibid.
For thousands of years the dragon was the symbol of an evil force. ibid.
Satan now adopts Pan’s best-known features. ibid.
In the 1980s stories about a vast conspiracy of organised Satanists sweeps the media. Known as the Satanic Panic, Christian groups allege mass satanic abuse of children and tens of thousands of kidnappings. ibid.
What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roared in dismal hell. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet III ii 43-44, Juliet to Nurse
That sly devil,
That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,
That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,
Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids, –
Who having no external thing to lose
But the word ‘maid’, cheats the poor maid of that –
That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling commodity. William Shakespeare, King John II i 568-574, Bastard to self
The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice I iii 97-101, Antonio to Bassiano & Shylock
Thou are come to answer
A stony adversity, an inhuman wretch
Uncapable of pity, void and empty
From any dram of mercy. ibid. IV i 1-3, Duke to Antonio