Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Devil, The
Renounce the Devil and all his works.
Book of Common Prayer. Baptism of Infants.
Every man for himself, his own ends, the devil for all.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. I. Memb. III.
The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. IV. Memb. I. Subsect. III.
And bid the devil take the hin’most.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto II. L. 633. Burns—To a Haggis. The Tragedy of Bouduca. Act IV. Sc. 2.
Nick Machiavel had ne’er a trick
(Though he gave his name to our Old Nick).
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. III. Canto I. L. 1,313.
Here is the devil-and-all to pay.
Cervantes—Don Quixote. Bk. IV. Pt. I. Ch. X.
Therefore it behooveth hire a full long spoon
That shal ete with a feend.
Chaucer—The Squire’s Tale. L. 602. Same idea in George Meriton—Praise of Yorkshire Ale. Dekker—Batchelars’ Banquet. Works. I. 170. (Grosart’s ed.). Heywood—Proverbs. Pt. II. Ch. V. Kemp—Nine Days Wonder. (1600). Marlowe—Jew of Malta. III. IV. Comedy of Errors. IV. III. 64. Tempest. II. 2.
Auch die Kultur, die alle Welt beleckt,
Hat auf den Teufel sich erstreckt.
Culture which smooth the whole world licks,
Also unto the devil sticks.
Goethe—Faust. I. 6. 160.
Nein, nein! Der Teufel ist ein Egoist
Und thut nicht leicht um Gottes Willen,
Was einem Andern nützlich ist.
No, no! The devil is an egotist,
And is not apt, without why or wherefore,
“For God’s sake,” others to assist.
Goethe—Faust. I. 4. 124.
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.
Heine—Pictures of Travels. The Return Home. No. 37.
When the devil drives, needs must. (Needs must when the devil drives.)
Heywood—Johan the Husband. Proverbs. Ch. VII. Cervantes—Don Quixote. Pt. I. Bk. IV. Ch. 4. Gosson—Ephemerides of Phialo. Marlowe—Dr. Faustus. Peele—Edward I. All’s Well that Ends Well. I. 3.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
Isaiah. XIV. 12.
What is got over the devil’s back is spent under his belly.
Attributed to Isocrates by Alain. René Le Sage—Gil Blas. Bk. III. Ch. X.
Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
James. IV. 7.
The king of terrors.
Job. XVIII. 14.
The Devil is an ass, I do acknowledge it.
Ben Jonson—The Devil is an Ass. Act IV. Sc. 1.
It is Lucifer,
The son of mystery;
And since God suffers him to be,
He, too, is God’s minister,
And labors for some good
By us not understood.
Longfellow—Christus. The Golden Legend. Epilogue. Last stanza.
Tell your master that if there were as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs, I would enter.
Martin Luther, April 16, 1521. See Bunsen’s Life of Luther. P. 61.
The devil, my friends, is a woman just now.
’Tis a woman that reigns in Hell.
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)—News.
Swings the scaly horror of his folded tail.
Milton—Hymn on Christ’s Nativity. L. 172.
The infernal serpent; he it was whose guile,
Stirr’d up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 34.
His form had yet not lost
All his original brightness, nor appear’d
Less than arch-angel ruined, and th’ excess
Of glory obscured.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 591.
From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer’s day; and with the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith like a falling star.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 742.
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 5.
Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem’d his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 670.
Incens’d with indignation Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burn’d,
That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
In th’ arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 707.
Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her own shape how lovely; saw
And pined his loss.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IV. L. 846.
Satan; so call him now, his former name
Is heard no more in heaven.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. V. L. 658.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
Peter. V. 8.
Bid the Devil take the slowest.
Prior—On the Taking of Namur.
Verflucht wer mit dem Teufel spielt.
Accursed be he who plays with the devil.
Schiller—Wallenstein’s Tod. 1. 3. 64.
I charge thee, Satan, hous’d within this man,
To yield possession to my holy prayers,
And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight;
I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven!
Comedy of Errors. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 67.
The devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.
Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 628.
Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables.
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 136.
He will give the devil his due.
Henry IV. Pt. I. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 132. Dryden—Epilogue to the Duke of Guise.
The prince of darkness is a gentleman.
King Lear. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 147. Sir John Suckling—The Goblins. Song. Act III.
Let me say “amen” betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer.
Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 22.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 7.
This is a devil, and no monster; I will leave him; I have no long spoon.
Tempest. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 101.
What, man! defy the devil: consider, he’s an enemy to mankind.
Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 107.
From his brimstone bed, at break of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To look at his little snug farm of the world,
And see how his stock went on.
Southey and Coleridge—The Devil’s Walk. St. 1. Title originally Devils’ Thoughts. Coleridge assigns to Southey the first four stanzas. See his Sibylline Leaves. (1817). P. 98. Claim of Porson a hoax.
The Satanic school.
Southey—Vision of Judgment. Original Preface. III.
The bane of all that dread the Devil!
Wordsworth—The Idiot Boy. St. 67.