The mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.

To blow and to swallow at the same time is not easy; I cannot at the same time be here and also there.

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

Egypt was the mother of magicians.

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

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

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

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

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

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.