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.

The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.

Have you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, a leopard, a wolf, or a bull?

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

All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.

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.

One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

Egypt was the mother of magicians.

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

The Mughal’s nature is such that they demand miracles, but if a miracle were to be performed by some upright follower of our religion, they would say that it had been brought about by magic and sorcery. They would strike him down with spears or would stone him to death.