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Quotes

The 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

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

—Saint Augustine, c. 400

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

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

—William Shakespeare, 1592

The 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, 1930

In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.

—Thomas Szasz, 1970

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, 1888

Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe.

—Demosthenes, 349 BC

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

—Derek Walcott, 1986

There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.

—John Locke, 1689

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

—Robertson Davies, 1985

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

—Thomas Malory, c. 1470

Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost.

—Robert Southey, 1809