Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.
—Sophocles, c. 441 BCQuotes
God is alive. Magic is afoot.
—Leonard Cohen, 1966The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.
—Gaston Bachelard, 1960To 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 BCOn 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, 1888Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
—Saint Augustine, c. 400Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.
—Derek Walcott, 1986Have you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, a leopard, a wolf, or a bull?
—Aristophanes, 423 BCMan is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1939I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.
—Thomas Malory, c. 1470Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe.
—Demosthenes, 349 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 BC