The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.
—Italo Calvino, 1967Quotes
Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1939Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
—Lucretius, c. 58 BCThe 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, 1878Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost.
—Robert Southey, 1809Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
—Tom Robbins, 1976On 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, 1888The 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, 1590Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
—Saint Augustine, c. 400The mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.
—Dai Vernon, 1994There 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, 1965Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.
—Pablo Picasso, 1929Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.
—William Shakespeare, 1592