The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.
—Albert Einstein, 1930Quotes
To 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 BCThe mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.
—Dai Vernon, 1994Men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, c. 50 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, 1960Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.
—Plato, c. 375 BCSuperstitions are habits rather than beliefs.
—Marlene Dietrich, 1962In 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, 1967Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.
—William Shakespeare, 1592A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.
—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952To ensure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough; a police force is needed as well.
—Albert Camus, 1951The fact is certain because it is impossible.
—Tertullian, c. 200I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.
—Thomas Malory, c. 1470