Curse

Curse

A curse (also called a jinx, or execration) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular, "curse" may refer to a wish that harm or hurt will be inflicted by any supernatural powers, such as a spell, a prayer, an imprecation, an execration, magic, witchcraft, God, a natural force, or a spirit. In many belief systems, the curse itself (or accompanying ritual) is considered to have some causative force in the result.

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Famous quotes containing the word curse:

    “There are lone figures armed only with ideas, sometimes with just one idea, who blast away whole epochs in which we are enwrapped like mummies. Some are powerful enough to resurrect the dead. Some steal on us unawares and put a spell over us which it takes centuries to throw off. Some put a curse on us, for our stupidity and inertia, and then it seems as if God himself were unable to lift it.”
    —Henry Miller (1891–1980)

    “The modern woman is the curse of the universe. A disaster, that’s what. She thinks that before her arrival on the scene no woman ever did anything worthwhile before, no woman was ever liberated until her time, no woman really ever amounted to anything.”
    —Adela Rogers St. Johns (1894–1988)

    “She left the web, she left the loom,
    She made three paces through the room,
    She saw the water-lily bloom,
    She saw the helmet and the plume,
    She looked down to Camelot.
    Out flew the web and floated wide;
    The mirror cracked from side to side;
    “The curse is come upon me,” cried
    The Lady of Shalott.”
    —Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)