The devil shall have his bargain, for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs: he shall give the devil his due. William Shakespeare, Henry IV I ii 116-118, Prince Harry to Poins and Sir John
7There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of a fat old man; a tun of man is thy companion. ibid. II iv 498
If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! ibid. II iv 524
Tell truth and shame the devil ... O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil. ibid. III i 56 & 59, Hotspur to Glyndwr
Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty. ibid. III iii, Falstaff
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence.
And other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation
With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetched
From glistering semblances of piety ...
If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions, ‘I can never win,
A soul so easy as that Englishman’s.’ William Shakespeare, Henry V II ii 76-80 & 108-114 & 118-122
Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger;
The greater therefore should our courage be ...
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out –
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
Which is both beautiful and good husbandry,
Besides, there are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.
Thus may we gather honey from the weed
And make a moral of the devil himself. ibid. IV i 1-14, King Harry to Gloucester
The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil. And the devil hath power
T’assume a pleasing shape. William Shakespeare II ii 573-575, Hamlet's soliloquy
For I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil himself with courtesy. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night IV ii 33-34, Feste
Divinity of hell:
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows. William Shakespeare, Othello II iii @341, Iago
The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman. William Shakespeare, The History of King Lear III iv 131, Edgar
What, can the devil speak true? William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth I iii 105, Banquo
The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist. Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen
The Devil pulls the strings which make us dance;
We find delight in the most loathsome things;
Some furtherance of Hell each new day brings,
And yet we feel no horror in that rank advance. Charles Baudelaire
A woman being never at a loss ... the devil always sticks by them. Lord Byron
When the late Pope John Paul II decided to place the woman so strangely known as ‘Mother’ Teresa on the fast track for beatification, and thus to qualify her for eventual sainthood, the Vatican felt obliged to solicit my testimony and I thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsignor, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic. In the course of this, I discovered that the pope during his tenure had surreptitiously abolished the famous office of ‘Devil’s Advocate’, in order to fast-track still more of his many candidates for canonization. I can thus claim to be the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono. Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
I handed them a script and they turned it down. It was too controversial. It talked about concepts like, ‘Who is God?’ The Enterprise meets God in space; God is a life form, and I wanted to suggest that there may have been, at one time in the human beginning, an alien entity that early man believed was God, and kept those legends. But I also wanted to suggest that it might have been as much the Devil as it was God. After all, what kind of god would throw humans out of Paradise for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. One of the Vulcans on board, in a very logical way, says, ‘If this is your God, he’s not very impressive. He’s got so many psychological problems; he’s so insecure. He demands worship every seven days. He goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He’s a pretty poor excuse for a supreme being.’ Gene Roddenberry
‘Not entirely fair?’ His voice became that of the inferno: a rushing, booming howl of icy evil that flew around the great cavern, as swift and cold as the Wendigo on skates. ‘I am Satan, also called Lucifer the Light Bearer ...’
Cabal winced. What was it about devils that they always had to give you their whole family history?
‘I was cast down from the presence of God himself into this dark, sulfurous pit and condemned to spend eternity here –’
‘Have you tried saying sorry?’ interrupted Cabal.
‘No, I haven’t! I was sent down for a sin of pride. It rather undermines my position if I say ‘sorry’!’ Jonathan L Howard, The Necromancer
It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui. Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
He loved the extensive vaults where you could hear the night birds and the sea breeze; he loved the craggy ruins bound together by ivy, those dark halls, and any appearance of death and destruction. Having fallen so far from so high a position, he loved anything that had also fallen from a great height. Gustave Flaubert
I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff. Aleister Crowley
The true name of Satan, the Kabbalists say, is that of Yahweh reversed, for Satan is not a black god. 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? Doubt it not. (Devil & Satan & Lucifer & Kabbalah) Aleister Crowley, Morals & Dogma
Those who play with the devil’s toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword. R Buckminster Fuller
Probably the worst time in a person’s life is when they have to kill a family member because they are the devil. But otherwise it’s been a pretty good day. Emo Philips
It is not a god, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes. Thomas Paine
We can never know for certain where our prayers are likely to go, nor from whom the answers will come. Just when we think we are at our nearest to God, we could be assisting the Devil. Norman Mailer
In the Christian world ... it is believed that angels were created at the beginning, and that heaven was formed of them; and that the Devil or Satan was an angel of light, who, becoming rebellious, was cast down with his crew, and that this was the origin of hell. Emanuel Swedenborg
William Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake! Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons I:39
The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies. Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621
Good Lord, what is man! for as simple he looks,
Do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks,
With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil,
All in all he’s a problem must puzzle the devil. Robert Burns, Sketch in Verse
O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie. (Satan & Lucifer & Devil) Robert Burns, Address to the Deil, 1786
And bid the devil take the hin’most. Samuel Butler, viz also Beaumont & Fletcher, Philaster or Love Lies a-Bleeding, 1611