Egypt was the mother of magicians.

Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

There are times when reality becomes too complex for oral communication. But legend gives it a form by which it pervades the whole world.

The believer in magic and miracles reflects on how to impose a law on nature—and, in brief, the religious cult is the outcome of this reflection.

There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.

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

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.

Appearances often are deceiving.

Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe.

To ensure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough; a police force is needed as well.