To blow and to swallow at the same time is not easy; I cannot at the same time be here and also there.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCQuotes
A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.
—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952Egypt was the mother of magicians.
—Clement of Alexandria, c. 200I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.
—Thomas Malory, c. 1470Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.
—Derek Walcott, 1986The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.
—Albert Einstein, 1930Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost.
—Robert Southey, 1809There 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, 1965One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCThe mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.
—Dai Vernon, 1994Men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, c. 50 BCSuperstitions are habits rather than beliefs.
—Marlene Dietrich, 1962The 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