Archive

Quotes

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

—Thomas Malory, c. 1470

Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.

—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1939

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

—Plotinus, c. 255

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

—Roald Dahl, 1990

Men willingly believe what they wish.

—Julius Caesar, c. 50 BC

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

—Lucretius, c. 58 BC

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

—Tertullian, c. 200

Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

—Woody Allen, 1979

In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.

—Thomas Szasz, 1970

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

—Derek Walcott, 1986

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

Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost.

—Robert Southey, 1809

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.

—Edward Bellamy, 1888