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.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878Quotes
Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.
—Plato, c. 375 BCHave you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, a leopard, a wolf, or a bull?
—Aristophanes, 423 BCTo blow and to swallow at the same time is not easy; I cannot at the same time be here and also there.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCThere 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.
—Elias Canetti, 1960Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe.
—Demosthenes, 349 BCBid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.
—William Shakespeare, 1592One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCEverything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.
—Pablo Picasso, 1929The mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.
—Dai Vernon, 1994There are times when reality becomes too complex for oral communication. But legend gives it a form by which it pervades the whole world.
—Jean-Luc Godard, 1965Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
—Saint Augustine, c. 400Men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, c. 50 BC