Martin Luther - Devil Quotes

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If I had heard that as many devils would set on me in Worms as there are tiles on the roofs, I should nonetheless have ridden there.

Martin Luther
The Devil, too, sometimes steals human children; it is not infrequent for him to carry away infants within the first six weeks after birth, and to substitute in their place imps...

Martin Luther
The Devil, it is true, is not exactly a doctor who has taken degrees, but he is very learned, very expert for all that. He has not been carrying on his business during thousands of years for nothing...

Martin Luther
God scorns and mocks the devil, in setting under his very nose a poor, weak, human creature, mere dust and ashes, yet endowed with the firstfruits of the Spirit, against whom the devil can do nothing.

Martin Luther
I believe that the devil has destroyed many good books of the church, as, aforetime, he killed and crushed many holy persons, the memory of whom has now passed away; but the Bible he was fain to leave subsisting.

Martin Luther
God is not a God of sadness, death, etc., but the devil is. Christ is a God of joy, and so the Scriptures often say that we should rejoice... A Christian should and must be a cheerful person.

Martin Luther
Over against the devil and his missionaries, the authors of false doctrines and sects, we ought to be like the Apostle, impatient, and rigorously condemnatory, as parents are with the dog that bites their little one, but the weeping child itself they soothe.

Martin Luther
The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that?

Martin Luther
The Devil can so completely assume the human form, when he wants to deceive us, that we may well lie with what seems to be a woman, of real flesh and blood, and yet all the while 'tis only the Devil in the shape of a woman. 'Tis the same with women, who may think that a man is in bed with them, yet 'tis only the Devil; and...the result of this connection is oftentimes an imp of darkness, half mortal, half devil...

Martin Luther
The winds are nothing else but good or bad spirits. Hark! how the Devil is puffing and blowing...

Martin Luther
We need not invite the Devil to our table; he is too ready to come without being asked. The air all about us is filled with demons...

Martin Luther
At Sussen, the Devil carried off, last Good Friday, three grooms who had devoted themselves to him.

Martin Luther
When the devil comes at night to worry me, this is what I say to him: Devil, I have to sleep now. That is God's commandment, for us to work by day and sleep at night. If he keeps on nagging me and trots out my sins, then I answer: Sweet devil, I know the whole list. But I have done even more sin which is not on your list. Write there also that I have shit in my breeches. Hang it around your neck and wipe your mouth on it. Then, if he won't cease to accuse me of sins, I say in contempt: Holy Satan, pray for me. ("Sancte Satane, ora pro me").

Martin Luther
Cannons and fire-arms are cruel and damnable machines; I believe them to have been the direct suggestion of the Devil. If Adam had seen in a vision the horrible instruments his children were to invent, he would have died of grief.

Martin Luther
Idiots, the lame, the blind, the dumb, are men in whom the devils have established themselves: and all the physicians who heal these infirmities, as though they proceeded from natural causes, are ignorant blockheads.

Martin Luther
In Switzerland, on a high mountain, not far from Lucerne, there is a lake they call Pilate's Pond, which the Devil has fixed upon as one of the chief residences of his evil spirits....

Martin Luther
When the devil wants to cause offense against the true doctrine and faith, he does not do so through insignificant people, who do not rate highly with the world, but through those who are the very best, the wisest, the holiest, and the most learned.

Martin Luther
Two devils rose from the water, and flew off through the air, crying, 'Oh, oh, oh!' and turning one over another, in sportive mockery...

Martin Luther
All the cunning of the devil is exercised in trying to tear us away from the word.

Martin Luther
If a man serves not God only, then surely he serves the devil.

Martin Luther
A man must be able to affirm, I know for certain, that what I teach is the only Word of the high Majesty of God in heaven, his final conclusion and everlasting, unchangeable truth, and whatsoever concurs and agrees not with this doctrine, is altogether false, and spun by the devil.

Martin Luther
The Devil fears the word of God, He can't bite it; it breaks his teeth.

Martin Luther
For, where God built a church, there the devil would also build a chapel…In such sort is the devil always God's ape.

Martin Luther
But since the devil's bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she's wise, and what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not doctors, no king or emperor, because [reason] is the Devil's greatest whore.

Martin Luther
The devil and temptations also do give occasion unto us somewhat to learn and understand the Scriptures, by experience and practice. Without trials and temptations we should never understand anything thereof; no, not although we diligently read and heard the same.

Martin Luther
And I myself, in Rome, heard it said openly in the streets, If there is a hell, then Rome is built on it. That is, After the devil himself, there is no worse folk than the pope and his followers.

Martin Luther
Dear rulers … I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school. … If the government can compel such citizens as are fit for military service to bear spear and rifle, to mount ramparts, and perform other martial duties in time of war, how much more has it a right to compel the people to send their children to school, because in this case we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities of their strong men.

Martin Luther
For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel... Thus is the Devil ever God's ape.

Martin Luther
Accordingly if the devil should say, 'Do not drink,' you should reply to him, 'On this very account, because you forbid it, I shall drink, and what is more, I shall drink a generous amount. Thus one must always do the opposite of that which Satan prohibits. What do you think is my reason for drinking wine undiluted, talking freely, and eating more often, if it is not to torment and vex the devil who made up his mind to torment and vex me.

Martin Luther
Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them.

Martin Luther