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.

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.

God is alive. Magic is afoot.

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

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.

Egypt was the mother of magicians.

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

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

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.

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.