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.

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

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.

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

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.

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

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.

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

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

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

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

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