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Quotes

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

—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952

Egypt was the mother of magicians.

—Clement of Alexandria, c. 200

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

—Marlene Dietrich, 1962

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.

—Robert Wilson, 1991

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

—Gaston Bachelard, 1960

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

—William Shakespeare, 1592

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

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

—Aristophanes, 423 BC

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

—Sophocles, c. 441 BC

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

—Italo Calvino, 1967

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

—Plato, c. 375 BC

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

—Thomas Malory, c. 1470

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

—Tertullian, c. 200