One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCQuotes
In the society of men, the truth resides now less in what things are than in what they are not. Our social realities are so ugly if seen in the light of exiled truth, and beauty is almost no longer possible if it is not a lie.
—R.D. Laing, 1967Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.
—Sophocles, c. 441 BCA miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.
—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.
—Pablo Picasso, 1929Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1939Men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, c. 50 BCBid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.
—William Shakespeare, 1592There 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, 1960Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.
—Robert Wilson, 1991Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.
—Woody Allen, 1979Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.
—Plato, c. 375 BCGod is alive. Magic is afoot.
—Leonard Cohen, 1966