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Quotes

Men willingly believe what they wish.

—Julius Caesar, c. 50 BC

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

—Lucretius, c. 58 BC

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

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

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

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.

—Fr. Antonio Monserrate, 1590

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

—William Shakespeare, 1592

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

—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952

Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.

—Sophocles, c. 441 BC

The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.

—Gaston Bachelard, 1960

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.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878

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

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.

—R.D. Laing, 1967