DEVIL I believe in the devil for three reasons:
1. The Bible plainly says he exists.
2. I see his work everywhere.
3. Great scholars have recognized his existence.
Billy Graham (1918– )
The whole world has been booby-trapped by the devil, and the deadliest trap of all is the religious one.
A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)
’Gainst the logic of the devil
Human logic strives in vain.
Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833–1870)
A sort of creeping comes over my skin when I hear the devil quote Scripture.
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)
And in he came with eyes of flame,
The devil, to fetch the dead;
And all the church with his presence glowed
Like a fiery furnace red.
Robert Southey (1774–1843)
Anything the devil does is always done well!
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
At the devil’s booth are all things sold,
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking:
’Tis heaven alone that is given away,
’Tis only God may be had for the asking;
No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
Confusion is the dust raised by the feet of the devil.
Frances J. Roberts
Devil: the strongest and fiercest spirit that fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair.
John Milton (1608–1674)
Everything the devil does, God overreaches to serve his own purpose.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)
He must have a long spoon that shall eat with the devil.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
He that serves God for money will serve the devil for better wages.
Sir Roger L’Estrange (1616–1704)
He who will fight the devil with his own weapons must not wonder if he finds him an overmatch.
Robert South (1634–1716)
His method of working is to present us with the magnificent set-up, hoping he shall not use either our brains or our spiritual faculties to penetrate the illusion. He is playing for sympathy; therefore he is much better served by exploiting our virtues than by appealing to our lower passions; consequently, it is when the devil looks most noble and reasonable that he is most dangerous.
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957)
I am a great enemy to flies. When I have a good book, they flock upon it and parade up and down upon it and soil it. ’Tis just the same with the devil. When our hearts are purest, he comes and soils them.
Martin Luther (1483–1546)
I call’d the devil, and he came
And with wonder his form did I closely scan;
He is not ugly, and is not lame,
But really a handsome and charming man.
A man in the prime of life is the devil,
Obliging, a man of the world, and civil
A diplomatist too, well skill’d in debate,
He talks quite glibly of church and state.
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
I sought only for the heart of God, therein to hide myself from the tempestuous storms of the devil.
Jakob Böhme (1575–1624)
I’m not running from the devil, the devil is running from me.
Carlton Pearson
If you don’t open the door to the devil, he goes away.
Illusion is the dust the devil throws in the eyes of the foolish.
Mima Antrim (b. 1861)
In heaven he scorns to serve, so now in hell he reigns.
John Fletcher (1579–1625)
It is easy to bid the devil to be your guest, but difficult to get rid of him.
Danish Proverb
Man, wrap yourself in God, abscond into his light;
I swear that you will thus escape the devil’s sight.
Angelus Silesius (1624–1677)
Order governs the world. The devil is the author of confusion.
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
Our adversary is a master strategist, forever fogging up our minds with smokescreens.
Charles R. Swindoll (1934– )
Our songs and psalms sorely vex and grieve the devil, whereas our passions and impatiences, our complainings and cryings, our “Alas” and “Woe is me” please him well, so that he laughs in his fist. He takes delight in tormenting us, especially when we confess, praise, preach, and laud Christ.
Martin Luther (1483–1546)
Satan fails to speak of the remorse, the futility, the loneliness, and the spiritual devastation which go hand in hand with immorality.
Billy Graham (1918– )
Satan rocks the cradle when we sleep at our devotions.
Joseph Hall (1574–1656)
Satan watches for those vessels that sail without a convoy.
George Swinnock (d. 1673)
Satan’s friendship reaches to the prison door.
Turkish Proverb
Satan; so call him now, his former name
Is heard no more in heaven.
John Milton (1608–1674)
Since the beginning of all times, men have perpetrated horrors against one another. It is the devil in them, but the devil would have no power over men if God did not allow it. Could he not, if he so willed, quell this revolution with his word? Must we not rather bow to his will and try to realize that something great, something good, something, at any rate, that is in accordance with the great scheme of the universe must in the end come out of all this sorrow?
Baroness Emmuska Orczy (1865–1947)
Sometimes the devil is a gentleman.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
Speak boldly, and speak truly. Shame the devil!
John Fletcher (1579–1625)
The devil always leaves a stink behind him.
The devil and me, we don’t agree;
I hate him; and he hates me.
Salvation Army Hymn
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
The devil cannot lord it over those who are servants of God with their whole heart and who place their hope in him. The devil can wrestle with but not overcome them.
Shepherd of Hermas (c. 155)
The devil comes to us in our hour of darkness, but we do not have to let him in. And we do not have to listen either.
Jewish Proverb
The devil does not tempt unbelievers and sinners who are already his own.
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471)
The devil doesn’t know how to sing, only how to howl.
Francis Thompson (1859–1907)
The devil entangles youth with beauty, the miser with gold, the ambitious with power, the learned with false doctrine.
Henry George Bohn (1796–1884)
The devil has one good quality, that he will flee if we resist him. Though cowardly, it is safety for us.
Tryon Edwards (1809–1894)
The devil has power to suggest evil, but he was not given the power to compel you against your will.
Saint Cyril (c. 315–386)
The devil has three children: pride, falsehood, and envy.
Welsh Proverb
The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
The devil is a bully, but when we stand in the armor of God he cannot harm us; if we tackle him in our own strength, we are soon done for; but if we stand with the strength and courage of God, he cannot gain one inch of way at all.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)
The devil is making his pitch!
Billy Graham (1918– )
The devil is not afraid of the Bible that has dust on it.
The devil is not always at one door.
The devil is perfectly willing for a person to profess Christianity, so long as he doesn’t practice it.
The devil paints himself black, but we see him rose-colored.
Finnish Proverb
The devil too loves man, but not for man’s sake—for his own. He loves man out of egotism, to aggrandize himself, to extend his power.
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–1872)
The devil tries to shake truth by pretending to defend it.
Tertullian (c. 160–after 220)
The devil wrestles with God, and the field of battle is the human heart.
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevski (1821–1881)
The devil’s best ruse is to persuade us that he does not exist.
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
The devil’s boots don’t creak.
Scottish Proverb
The devil’s ever kind to his own.
Alexander Brome (1620–1666)
The devil’s most devilish when respectable.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
The devil’s snare does not catch you unless you are first caught by the devil’s bait.
Saint Ambrose (c. 340–397)
The devil, that old stager . . . who leads
Downward, perhaps, but fiddles all the way!
Robert Browning (1812–1889)
The media have, indeed, provided the devil with perhaps the greatest opportunity accorded him since Adam and Eve were turned out of the Garden of Eden.
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)
The method of the evil one is to obscure himself behind some other object of worship.
G. Campbell Morgan (1863–1945)
The serpent—subtlest beast of all the field.
John Milton (1608–1674)
We cannot stand against the wiles of the devil by our wits. The devil only comes along the line that God understands, not along the lines we understand, and the only way we can be prepared for him is to do what God tells us, stand complete in his armor, indwelt by his Spirit, in complete obedience to him.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)
We must not so much as taste of the devil’s broth, lest at last he brings us to eat of his beef
Thomas Hall (1610–1665)
What the devil wanted of Jesus . . . was, essentially, to involve him in the exigencies of power, thereby neutralizing his gospel of love, and leaving mankind still at the devil’s mercy.
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)
When you close your eyes to the devil, be sure that it is not a wink.
John C. Kulp (1921–)
Where the devil can’t go he sends his grandmother.
German Proverb
Where the devil cannot put his head he puts his tail.
Italian Proverb
