On 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.

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

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

Men willingly believe what they wish.

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

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

Appearances often are deceiving.

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

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.

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.

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.