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, 1888Quotes
Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.
—Sophocles, c. 441 BCAny serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.
—Derek Walcott, 1986There 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, 1965Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
—Lucretius, c. 58 BCNothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.
—Robertson Davies, 1985Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.
—Pablo Picasso, 1929All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.
—Plotinus, c. 255Watch 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, 1990The 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. 1400In 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, 1967Egypt was the mother of magicians.
—Clement of Alexandria, c. 200Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.
—William Shakespeare, 1592