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Quotes

Appearances often are deceiving.

—Aesop, c. 550 BC

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

—Lucretius, c. 58 BC

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

God is alive. Magic is afoot.

—Leonard Cohen, 1966

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

—Derek Walcott, 1986

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

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

—Dai Vernon, 1994

The fear of the Lord is true wisdom, and he who hath it not can in no way penetrate the true secrets of magic.

—Abraham the Jew, c. 1400

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

—Tertullian, c. 200

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

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

—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

—William Shakespeare, 1592

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

—Gaston Bachelard, 1960