Men willingly believe what they wish.

In the society of men, the truth resides now less in what things are than in what they are not. Our social realities are so ugly if seen in the light of exiled truth, and beauty is almost no longer possible if it is not a lie.

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

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.

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

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

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

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

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

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