Demon

A demon is a supernatural and often malevolent being prevalent in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology and folklore.

Quotes

Those studies I was then pursuing, generally accounted as respectable, were aimed at distinction in the courts of law--to excel in which, the more crafty I was, the more I should be praised. Such is the blindness of men that they even glory in their blindness. And by this time I had become a master in the School of Rhetoric, and I rejoiced proudly in this honor and became inflated with arrogance. Still I was relatively sedate, O Lord, as thou knowest, and had no share in the wreckings of “The Wreckers” (for this stupid and diabolical name was regarded as the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived with a sort of ashamed embarrassment that I was not even as they were. But I lived with them, and at times I was delighted with their friendship, even when I abhorred their acts (that is, their “wrecking”) in which they insolently attacked the modesty of strangers, tormenting them by uncalled-for jeers, gratifying their mischievous mirth. Nothing could more nearly resemble the actions of devils than these fellows. By what name, therefore, could they be more aptly called than “wreckers”?--being themselves wrecked first, and altogether turned upside down. They were secretly mocked at and seduced by the deceiving spirits, in the very acts by which they amused themselves in jeering and horseplay at the expense of others.
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book III, Chapter III (400 A.D.), translated by Albert C. Outler

Evil power disappears
Demons worry when the wizard is near
He turns tears into joy
Everyone's happy when the wizard walks by.
- The Wizard, from the album Black Sabbath, written by Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward (February 13, 1970)

Man's need of self-esteem entails the need for a sense of control over reality – but no control is possible in a universe which, by one's own concession, contains the supernatural, the miraculous and the causeless, a universe in which one is at the mercy of ghosts and demons, in which one must deal, not with the unknown, but with the unknowable; no control is possible if man proposes, but a ghost disposes; no control is possible if the universe is a haunted house.
- Nathaniel Branden, "Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice" (1963)

May a cruel curse be uttered against the galla demon who has brought his hand against you.
- Elegy on the Death of Nawirtum (3rd millennium BCE). [1]

Most nature-spirits dislike and avoid mankind, and we cannot wonder at it. To them man appears a ravaging demon, destroying and spoiling wherever he goes... He wantonly kills, often with awful tortures, all the beautiful creatures that they love to watch... p. 143
- C.W. Leadbeater The Hidden Side of things, (1913)

Somewhere in the desert at the back of Alexandria there was once a monastery whose abbot possessed the power of clairvoyance. Among his monks there were two young men who had an especial reputation for purity and holiness... One day when they were singing in the choir it occurred to the abbot to turn his clairvoyant faculty upon these two young men... he looked at the first young man and saw that he had surrounded himself with a shell as of glittering crystal, and that when the tempting demons (impure thought-forms we should call them) came rushing at him, they struck against this shell, and fell back without injuring him, so that he remained inside his shell, calm and cold and pure. Then the abbot looked at the second young monk, and he saw that he had built no shell round himself, but that his heart was so full of the love of God that it was perpetually radiating- from him in all directions in the shape of torrents of love for his fellowmen, so that when the attempting- demons sprang at him with foul intent they were all washed away in that mighty outpouring stream, and so he also remained pure and undefiled... p. 477
- C.W. Leadbeater The Hidden Side of things, (1913)

In our case, who pledge ourselves to do no wickedness, nor to hold these atheistic opinions, you do not examine the charges made against us; but, yielding to unreasoning passion, and to the instigation of evil demons, you punish us without consideration or judgment. For the truth shall be spoken; since of old these evil demons, effecting apparitions of themselves, both defiled women and corrupted boys, and showed such fearful sights to men, that those who did not use their reason in judging of the actions that were done, were struck with terror; and being carried away by fear, and not knowing that these were demons, they called them gods, and gave to each the name which each of the demons chose for himself. And when Socrates endeavoured, by true reason and examination, to bring these things to light, and deliver men from the demons, then the demons themselves, by means of men who rejoiced in iniquity, compassed his death, as an atheist and a profane person, on the charge that "he was introducing new divinities;" and in our case they display a similar activity. For not only among the Greeks did reason (Logos) prevail to condemn these things through Socrates, but also among the Barbarians were they condemned by Reason (or the Word, the Logos) Himself, who took shape, and became man, and was called Jesus Christ; and in obedience to Him, we not only deny that they who did such things as these are gods, but assert that they are wicked and impious demons, whose actions will not bear comparison with those even of men desirous of virtue.
- Justin Martyr, The First Apology, Chap. v.—Christians charged with atheism (c. 155 A.D.), translated by Marcus Dods

The demons have always effected that all those who ever so little strived to live by logos and shun vice be hated.
- Justin Martyr. Second Apology, in Readings in World Christian History (2013), p. 40

Reason can no longer restrain the man who is tempted by the demon of ambition, and he plunges headlong into what impetuous instinct suggests: he no longer chooses his position in life, instead it is determined by chance and illusion.
- Karl Marx, Reflections of a Young Man on The Choice of a Profession, written between August 10 and 16, 1835; first published in Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, 1925

We have refrained from offering to the Divinity honour by [erecting temples and statues] (seeing they are adapted rather to demons, which are somehow fixed in a certain place which they prefer to any other).
- Origen, Against Celsus, Book III, Chapter XXXIV (248 A.D.), translated by Frederick Crombie

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention.
- George Orwell, Why I Write (1946)

I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too.
- Paul of Tarsus, 1 Corinthians 10:20, 21, New International Version.

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!
- Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven (January 1845)

Feeding on chaos and living in sin
Downward spiral
Where do I begin?
It all started when I lost my Mother
No love for myself
And no love from another
Searching!
To find a lover on a higher level
Finding nothing but questions and devils
- Papa Roach, Last Resort, from the album Infest, written by Jacoby Shaddix and Tobin Esperance (2000)