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 BCQuotes
Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
—Tom Robbins, 1976Egypt was the mother of magicians.
—Clement of Alexandria, c. 200Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.
—Sophocles, c. 441 BCHave you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, a leopard, a wolf, or a bull?
—Aristophanes, 423 BCFaith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
—Saint Augustine, c. 400Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
—Roald Dahl, 1990Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost.
—Robert Southey, 1809Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.
—Woody Allen, 1979Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.
—William Shakespeare, 1592The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.
—Italo Calvino, 1967A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.
—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952On no other stage are the scenes shifted with a swiftness so like magic as on the great stage of history when once the hour strikes.
—Edward Bellamy, 1888