Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching toward him and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.

A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.

Appearances often are deceiving.

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.

The Mughal’s nature is such that they demand miracles, but if a miracle were to be performed by some upright follower of our religion, they would say that it had been brought about by magic and sorcery. They would strike him down with spears or would stone him to death.

All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.

Egypt was the mother of magicians.

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.