Mephistopheles Quotes

1. "He had full opportunity to learn the falsity of the maxim that the Prince of Darkness is a gentleman. Again and again he felt that a suave and subtle Mephistopheles with a red cloak and rapier and a feather in his cap or even a sombre tragic Satan out of Paradise Lost would have been a welcome release from the thing he was actually doomed to watch. It was not like dealing with a wicked politician at all, it was much more like being set to guard an imbecile or a monkey or a very nasty child."
Author: C.S. Lewis

2. "Faustus: Stay, Mephistopheles, and tell me, what good willmy soul do thy lord?Mephistopheles: Enlarge his kingdom.Faustus: Is that the reason he tempts us thus?Mephistopheles: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.(It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery)"
Author: Christopher Marlowe

3. "Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of GodAnd tasted the eternal joys of heaven,Am not tormented with ten thousand hellsIn being deprived of everlasting bliss?"
Author: Christopher Marlowe

4. "Had I as many souls as there be stars, I'd give them all for Mephistopheles!"
Author: Christopher Marlowe

5. "[The Devil] Mephistopheles, when he comes to Faust, testifies of himself that he desires evil, yet does only good. Well, let him do as he likes, it's quite the opposite with me. I am perhaps the only man in all of nature who loves the truth and sincerely desires good."
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

6. "THE WITCH.[dancing].O I shall lose my wits, I fear,Do I, again, see Squire Satan here!MEPHISTOPHELES. Woman, the name offends my ear!THE WITCH. Why so? What has it done to you?MEPHISTOPHELES. It has long since to fable-books been banished;But men are none the better for it; true,The wicked one, but not the wicked ones, has vanished."
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

7. "I am part of the part that once was everything,Part of the darkness which gave birth to light…Mephistopheles, from Faust."
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

8. "Men grieve [Mephistopheles] so with the days of their lamenting, [he] even hate[s] to plague them with [his] torments."
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

9. "Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute. ...Certainly Star Wars has a valid mythological perspective. It shows the state as a machine and asks, "Is the machine going to crush humanity or serve humanity?" Humanity comes not from the machine but from the heart. What I see in Star Wars is the same problem that Faust gives us: Mephistopheles, the machine man, can provide us with all the means, and is thus likely to determine the aims of life as well. But of course the characteristic of Faust, which makes him eligible to be saved, is that he seeks aims that are not those of the machine. Now, when Luke Skywalker unmasks his father, he is taking off the machine role that the father has played. The father was the uniform. That is power, the state role."
Author: Joseph Campbell

10. "I let him run on, this papier-maché Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe."
Author: Joseph Conrad

11. "VideotapeWhen I'm at the pearly gatesThis will be on my videotape, my videotapeMephistopheles is just beneathand he's reaching up to grab meThis is one for the good daysand i have it all hereIn red, blue, greenRed, blue, greenYou are my centerWhen I spin awayOut of control on videotapeOn videotapeOn videotapeOn videotapeThis is my way of saying goodbyeBecause I can't do it face to faceI'm talking to you beforeNo matter what happens nowYou shouldn't be afraidBecause I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen."
Author: Radiohead

12. "The great prophetic work of the modern world is Goethe's Faust, so little appreciated among the Anglo-Saxons. Mephistopheles offers Faust unlimited knowledge and unlimited power in exchange for his soul. Modern man has accepted that bargain. . . .I believe in what the Germans term Ehrfurcht: reverence for things one cannot understand. Faust's error was an aspiration to understand, and therefore master, things which, by God or by nature, are set beyond the human compass. He could only achieve this at the cost of making the achievement pointless. Once again, it is exactly what modern man has done."
Author: Robert Aickman

13. "Hannibal at eighteen was rooting for Mephistopheles and contemptuous of Faust, but he only half-listened to the climax. He was watching and breathing Lady Murasaki..."
Author: Thomas Harris

Mephistopheles Quotes Pictures