Evil eye

“ Though in many cases involuntary, it has been pointed out that some believe that individuals knowing or professing to know that they have an Evil Eye, from sheer devilry, exercise it to the injury of others, though for no visible benefit to themselves. ”

“ For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man."—Verses 20-23. ”

“ The 'evil eye,' so long dreaded in uneducated countries, has its terrors among us; and if a person of ill life be suddenly called away, there are generally some who hear his 'tokens,' or see his ghost. ”

“ Another direct and immediate product of primitive demonism is the notion of the evil eye. This is a concrete dogma and a primary inference from demonism. It is often confounded with the jettatura of the Italians. The evil eye is an affliction which befalls the fortunate and prosperous in their prosperity. It is the demons who are irritated by human luck and prosperity who inflict calamity, pain, and loss, at the height of good luck. ”

“ By the light of the fire curling its smoke upward through the central opening in the roof, it was interesting to note the faces of our hosts. We had never met a people of a more peaceful temperament, and, on the other hand, none more easily frightened. A dread of the evil eye is one of their characteristics. ”

“ The Evil Eye is a superstition arising not from local circumstances, or peculiarity of a great or small division of the human family, but is a result of an original tendency of the human mind. The natural irritation felt at the hostile look of a neighbour, still more of an enemy, is implanted in the breast of all, however much they may be influenced by moral teaching. When we add to this the feeling that some valued possession has attracted the coveteous desire of another, the fear of loss is added to the irritation of mere anger. ”

“ But if this mass of mad contradictions really existed, quakerish and bloodthirsty, too gorgeous and too thread-bare, austere, yet pandering preposterously to the lust of the eye, the enemy of women and their foolish refuge, a solemn pessimist and a silly optimist, if this evil existed, then there was in this evil something quite supreme and unique. ”

“ Out of evil, evil will come. We do not gather figs of thistles. Your life has been evil; your heart is bad. Can good emanate from this? You will go forth to the world in fair seeming, no trace of your sin visible to the eye, and you will spread the contagion of your sin. Listen to me, Myron Holder. ”

“ It may in different places of the Bible mean different things. What is meant in the text is clear enough. The evil eye here is such an eye as the laborers in the vineyard had when they looked askance at their neighbor's good fortune. An evil eye, therefore, is a grudging, an envious eye. To say of any one in this sense that he has an evil eye, is the same as saying that he is of a grudging, an envious turn of mind. Now, this particular turn of mind is far more common than it ought to be. The divine Householder still has occasion to ask, "Is thine eye evil?" ”

“ We are told that the numerous charms hung about them are to ward off the “evil eye”—rather a necessary precaution, when we see the little innocents in close contact with vice in its most rampant form, or such a scene as that before us. ”

“ Evil Eye, a power which, according to an old and widespread superstition, resides in some people of doing injury to others by a mere look, or a look accompanied by certain words or charms. This belief, common amongst the ancients, is still prevalent among the more ignorant classes in Italy, Russia, Andalusia, the Highlands of Scotland, and other places. The Finns, Lapps, and Scandinavians, the Arabs and the Turks are all firm believers in the evil eye. ”

“ The eye of an enemy seeks for faults with which to accuse and persecute; and when no real fault can be found the evil eye seeks to make faults by looking at our actions and motives in a false light, and if possible getting others to regard them in the same false light. But not so the eye of a friend. A wise father watches his children, not to find faults with which to accuse, but in love to correct by pointing out their evil tendencies and the end to which they lead. ”

“ Of course there always were doubters, and the tricks played to take a rise out of a believer by an unbeliever may sometimes figure as accepted evidence of the bad effects of the Evil Eye, when it was a trick played off merely for fun, though in other cases deliberately intended to mislead. ”

“ Our business is with the so-called facts of the Evil Eye, and whether or not in this case the philology of the compiler of the Glossary is right, there can be no sort of doubt of the allusion being to the present living belief in the Evil Eye. ”

“ This inscription refers to the evil god, the evil /utukku/, the /utukku/ of the plain, of the mountain, of the sea, and of the grave; the evil /šêdu/, the glorious /âlû/, or divine bull, and the evil unsparing wind. There was also that which takes the form of a man, the evil face, the evil eye, the evil mouth, the evil tongue, the evil lip, the evil breath ”

“ Those who wish to avoid the evil eye, instead of trusting in charms, scrawls, and Rabbinical antidotes, let them never loiter in the sunshine before the king of day has nearly reached his bourn in the west; for the sun has an evil eye, and his glance produces brain fevers ”

“ The superstition of the Evil Eye is, and has been, one of the most general that ever existed among men. It may puzzle philosophers to ask why it prevails wherever mankind exists. There is not a country on the face of the earth where a belief in the influence of the Evil Eye does not prevail. ”

“ and then would wag their tails as though they said, "no eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!" ”

“ With this is intimately connected the belief in the Evil Eye, and that certain persons have the power of calling down on their enemies the influence of evil spirits; and, as in Western lands, such a power is often attributed to persons afflicted with ugliness, deformity, crankiness of temper, liability to sudden fits of passion, epilepsy, and the like. Disease or death, famine, accident, or any form of trouble, never, in popular belief, come naturally. ”

“ I have observed, that only in hot countries, where the sun and moon are particularly dazzling, the belief in the evil eye is prevalent. If we turn to Scripture, the wonderful book which is capable of resolving every mystery, I believe that we shall presently come to the solution of the evil eye. ”

“ It injures the object on which it falls, and animals or persons struck by it are seized with mysterious ailments, dwindle, and perhaps die.
The believers in the gift assert that the evil eye may exist in man or woman, in friend or foe, and that it is prudent not to give causes for the feelings which give rise to it. Thus, for instance, it is advisable not to allow a cow to go without a full udder. An evil eye may rest upon it, and the animal be lost. ”

“ A well-informed woman, an innkeeper, said that in cases where a person possessed of the Evil Eye admired anything belonging to another, no injury could follow if some little present were given to the suspected person on leaving. ”

“ In this case, as in many others, the possession of the evil eye may not have been supposed due to any evil purpose or character. Good people might be born with this baleful influence, and might exert it against [87] their will or even unconsciously. ”

“ No one ever accosted her without having the fingers flexed in the approved fashion, unless, indeed, they had about them some potent amulet.
It is a curious fact that the possession of the evil eye may be imputed to any one, regardless of character or position. ”

“ To behold, simply, is the function of the eye, but to behold in an evil manner belongs to a mind depraved within. As through this sense the knowledge of visible objects enters the soul, and as jealousy is for the most part generated by wealth, and wealth and sovereignty and pomp are perceived by the eye, therefore he calls the eye evil ”

“ It would make every one suspect his fellowman to be a demon. For though mesmerists, in defence, say, "the Evil Spirit cannot do good," may he not first, to establish the evil, transform himself into "an angel of light?" for this is within the scope of his deceptive power. If it be altogether a delusion, a falsity, an imposture, let it be exposed, condemned; and the mesmeriser be, in the law's eye, a common fortuneteller, and the craft subjected to the same penalties. ”

“ He who walks in them is ever groping; hiding himself among the subtleties of “fleshly wisdom”: and being ways of false principle and sin, they are ways of danger, and shame, and ruin.—Wardlaw.
There is a strictly casual and reciprocal relation between unrighteous deeds and moral darkness. The doing of evil produces darkness, and darkness produces the evil doing. Indulged lusts put out the eye-sight of the conscience; and under the darkened conscience the lusts revel unchecked.—Arnot.
The light stands in the way of their wicked ways as the angel did in Balaam’s way to his sin.—Trapp. ”

“ The acceptance of this commandment as binding, demonstrates that there is a power for evil in thought alone. The covetous man’s eye is “in it,” let him do as he likes. This power is shown vividly by the belief so often expressed that admiration of one’s own possessions will result in evil to them. ”

“ When evil crawls below
What seems so pure and fair,
Thine eyes are keen and true
To find the serpent there:
And yet—I turn away;
Thy task is not divine—
The evil angels look
On earth with eyes like thine. ”

“ Her brow was stamped with hatred and revenge.
Woe and distraction, from these loathsome fonts,
Fierce as hell-torrents, burst upon her path;
And she did spurn repentance. And I saw
The Evil One from depths of darkness come ”

“ Why should they be worried or even fear some infection from me, as if troubles could be transmitted? Is there any evil involved, or is it a matter merely of ill report, rather than an evil?" Put the question voluntarily to yourself: "Am I tormented without sufficient reason, am I morose, and do I convert what is not an evil into what is an evil?" ”

“ There, unspeakable kindness, tenderness and forbearance, meet them at every turn. So wisely and tenderly are they governed, that their hereditary evils remain dormant— are not excited, or aroused into activity. Here, they are often forced to be spectators of shocking scenes—scenes in which the very malignities of hell pour themselves forth in obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, cruel calumnies, stinging taunts, and acts of violence, hatred and cruelty: There, they witness no exhibitions of turbulent passions or evil feelings in those around them; they hear no vulgar, profane or angry words ”

“ Can be, with his dim optics, with his limited vision, fathom the human heart? Can he sound its depths, trace its meanderings, dive into its recesses, with sufficient precision, to determine who amongst his race is or is not possessed of the requisite merit to enjoy a blessed eternity? Thus wicked men are held up as models by superstition, which as we shall see, sharpens the passions of evil-disposed men, by legitimating those crimes, at which, without this sanction, they would shudder ”

“ Could we but have the heart of the wicked laid open before us; could we but see how it is torn and wrung by the evil passions that harbour within it; could we but mark how, even in the strongest and most determined breast, when bent upon evil purposes, or engaged in wicked acts, fear and apprehension go hand in hand with every deed of evil, while repentance, remorse, and punishment follow more slowly, though not less surely, in the distance ”

“ In actual outrages, in terrific visions, in mystical but real sufferings, which afflicted every sense and tortured every nerve, the animosity of the evil spirit evinced itself; and Almighty God permitted it, for she was of those chosen through much tribulation to ascend the steep path which is paved with thorns and compassed with darkness, but on which the ray of an unearthly sunshine breaks at times. ”

“ Her unconsciousness of the evil which lives in the secret thoughts and therefore in the open acts of mankind, whenever it happens that evil thought meets evil courage; her unconsciousness was to be broken into with profane violence with desecrating circumstances, like a temple violated by a mad, vengeful impiety. Yes, that very young girl, almost no more than a child--this was what was going to happen to her. ”

“ To reason, justify, to apotheosize evil, to establish its ritual, to show the excellence of it—is this not worse than to commit it? To adore the demon, or love evil, the abstract or the concrete term of one and the same fact. ”

“ Daylong and nightlong their shadows pursue me with evil,
Haunting my thought in the day, killing my rest in the night;
Now they have drawn me here; their multitudinous devil
Bids me die where I sinned. ”

“ Every husband, every father, every brother, feared and loathed him as the incarnation of the Evil one—in their mean, narrow, tedious nauseating philosophy they held him as a perjured villain of the deepest dye, steeped in utterest infamy! ”

“ Something of the original passion of the evil-doer, and of the horror felt by his victim, enters the heart of the innocent watcher, and he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin, and a chilling of the blood. ”

“ Whenever evil things, evil thoughts have possession of our bosoms, and we have not spoken a word—not given the thought shape, form, and signification to those around us, who knows of it? Nobody. Who is injured? ”

“ Sect. XV. “How many evil thoughts do we not think every day! How many deceitful and unseemly words do we not speak! How many unseemly deeds do we not do! Thus do we prepare torments for ourselves by crimes and frauds. Since we have walked body and soul in the love of the greedy and shameless Demon of Envy, and the Light of the Five Gods which we absorb in our food every day thereby goes to the Land of Evil. Wherefore, O my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now: Manâstâr hîrzâ! ”