Oscar Wilde - Karl Kraus - Charles Reade - Alastair Sooke TV - Donald McGill - esias - Tex Watson - A Clockwork Orange 1971 - The Devil’s Advocate 1997 - Ralph Epperson - Occulptopedia - Proverbs - Fyodor Dostoevsky - S Acharya - Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Samuel Butler - Robert Graves - Rowland Hill - Robert Louis Stevenson - Tertullian - Aleister Crowley - Nelson DeMille - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Irish toast - John Milton - Cotton Mather - Albert Pike - Elaine Pagels - Nostradamus Effect TV - The History of the Devil TV - William Shakespeare - Charles Baudelaire - Lord Byron - Christopher Hitchens - Jonathan L Howard - Helen Keller - Gustave Flaubert - Aleister Crowley - R Buckminster Fuller - Emo Philips - Thomas Paine - Norman Mailer - Emanuel Swedenborg - Robert Bolt - Robert Burton - Robert Burns - Butler & Burns & Fletcher - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Helena P Blavatsky - N Sri Ram - Christopher Marlowe - Jonathan Magonet - Andy Hamilton - Martin Palmer - Ronald Hutton - Satan: Prince of Darkness TV - American Outsiders: Secret Passions TV - Francesca Stavrakopoulou TV - Bill Maher - Job 26:7 - Proverbs 15:11 - Wisdom of Solomon 2:24 - Matthew 4:1-11 - Luke 4:2 - Luke 4:2-8 - Luke 16:9-13 - Revelation 9:11 - Revelation 12:7-9 - Revelation 12:12 - Revelation 19:11-13&19-21 - Revelation 20:1-15 - Daniel Defoe - Thomas Moore - Martin Luther - John Bunyan - Rumpole of the Bailey TV - Louis MacNeice - John Webster - Avesta: Khorda Avesta & Greater Bundahishn - Rab C Nesbitt TV -
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde
The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are. Karl Kraus
Take courage, my friend, the devil is dead! Charles Reade, The Cloister and the Hearth, 1861
Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub, Old Nick – the Devil has many names and many different faces ... The Devil we know today is a human creation, owing more to the minds of artists than the pages of the Bible. Alastair Sooke, How the Devil Got His Horns, BBC 2012
Dante does what Giotto doesn’t: he makes Satan three-dimensional. There is the first hint of empathy with the Devil in this poem. ibid.
Devil: Do you know who I am?
Drunken man: Of course I do. I married your sister. Donald McGill saucy seaside postcard
Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle,
God’s up there,
The devil’s down there
And here am I.
Trapped.
In the middle. esias, Life is a Steaming Pile of Donkey Doo-Doos c.1996
I’m the devil. And I’m here to do the devil’s business. Tex Watson to victim, Manson gang
Is it some devil that crawls inside of you? A Clockwork Orange 1971 starring Malcolm McDowell & Patrick Magee & Michael Bates & Warren Clarke & John Clive & Adrienne Corri & Carl Duering & Paul Farrell & Clive Francis & Michael Gover et al, director Stanley Kubrick, mentor to Alex
You gotta keep yourself small. Innocuous. Be the little guy. You know, the nerd ... the leper ... shit-kickin’ serf. Look at me. Underestimated from day one. You’d never think I was a master of the universe now, would ya? The Devil’s Advocate 1997 starring Al Pacino & Keanu Reeves & Charlize Theron & Jeffrey Jones & Judith Ivey & Connie Nielson & Craig T Nelson & Heather Matarazzo & Tamara Tunie et al, director Taylor Hackford
I’m the hand up Mona Lisa’s skirt. ibid. Devil
You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire. You build egos the size of cathedrals. Fibre-optically connect the world to every eager impulse. Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green gold-plated fantasies until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own god. Where can you go from there? As we’re scrambling from one deal to the next, who’s got his eye on the planet? As the air thickens, the water sours, even bees’ honey takes on the metallic taste of radioactivity ... and it just keeps coming, faster and faster. There’s no chance to think, to prepare; it’s buy futures, sell futures ... when there is no future. We got a runaway train, boy. We got a billion Eddie Barzoons all jogging into the future. Every one of them is getting ready to fistfuck God’s ex-planet, lick their fingers clean, as they reach out toward their pristine, cybernetic keyboards to tote up their fucking billable hours. And then it hits home. You got to pay your own way, Eddie. It’s a little late in the game to buy out now. Your belly’s too full, your dick is sore, your eyes are bloodshot and you’re screaming for someone to help. But guess what – there’s no-one there! You’re all alone, Eddie. You’re God’s special little creature. Maybe it’s true. Maybe God threw the dice once too often. Maybe He let us all down. ibid.
John Milton: Who are you carrying all those bricks for anyway? God? Is that it? God? Well, I tell ya, let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do? I swear, for His own amusement, His own private cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time. Look, but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t taste. Taste, don’t swallow. Aha ha ha. And while you’re jumpin’ from one foot to the next, what is He doin’? He’s laughin’ His sick, fuckin’ ass off. He’s a tight-ass. He’s a sadist. He’s an absentee landlord. Worship that? Never!
Kevin Lomax: ‘Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven’ – is that it?
John Milton: Why not? I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began! I’ve nurtured every sensation man has been inspired to have! I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him, in spite of all his imperfections! I’m a fan of man! I’m a humanist. Maybe the last humanist. Who, in their right mind, Kevin, could possibly deny the 20th century was entirely mine? All of it, Kevin! All of it! Mine! I’m peaking, Kevin. It’s my time now. It’s our time. ibid.
We’re destined to lose, dad. ibid. Kevin to Devil
And they don’t believe that that God should rule this universe. That’s what this New World Order is all about ... These people physically, knowingly, willingly worship Lucifer, Satan, the devil ... These people George Bush included ... He worships Lucifer, Satan, the devil. There’s no question about that ... He would not be president unless he worshipped Lucifer. Ralph Epperson, author The New World Order & The Unseen Hand
Abaddon – literally meaning destruction, ruin or perdition – is the Hebrew name of the demon identified as the angel of the bottomless pit, or the abyss in Revelation 9:11, who ties up the Devil for a millennium. Also known as ‘The Destroyer’, from his role as one of the destroying angels in the Apocalypse. In Job 26:6 and Proverbs 15:11 the word Abaddon arises in conjunction with Sheol. He is further identified as the Devil himself in the 3rd century Acts of Thomas, as well as John Bunyan’s puritan classic Pilgrim’s Progress. Occultopedia
The devil can quote scripture for his own ends. Late 16th century proverb
The devil finds work for idle hands to do. Early 18th century proverb
Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know. Mid-19th century proverb
The devil is in the details. German proverb
The devil never grants long leases. Irish proverb
Why should the devil have all the best tunes? Mid-19th century proverb
If the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821-81, The Brothers Karamazov
Perhaps the Devil brings peace, and not a sword, to humanity. Considering how many people have been killed in the name of God and not the Devil, maybe the world is worshipping the wrong entity. S Acharya, The Devil is Divine
The devil’s most devilish when respectable. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
An apology for the Devil: it must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books. Samuel Butler, 1835-1902
Beware, madam, of the witty devil,
The arch intriguer who walks disguised
In a poet’s cloak, his gay tongue oozing evil. Robert Graves, ‘Beware, Madam!’
He did not see any reason why the devil should have all the good tunes. Rowland Hill, 1744-1833
The devil, depend upon it, can sometimes do a very gentlemanly thing. Robert Louis Stevenson, New Arabian Nights, 1882