Archive

Quotes

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

—Robertson Davies, 1985

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

—Derek Walcott, 1986

There 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, 1965

Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

—Woody Allen, 1979

The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.

—Italo Calvino, 1967

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

—Albert Camus, 1951

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

—Saint Augustine, c. 400

Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.

—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1939

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

—Tom Robbins, 1976

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

—Pablo Picasso, 1929

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 BC

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

—Thomas Malory, c. 1470

There 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, 1960