Archive

Quotes

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 worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

—Woody Allen, 1979

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

Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.

—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1939

God is alive. Magic is afoot.

—Leonard Cohen, 1966

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

—Roald Dahl, 1990

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 BC

One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

—Thomas Malory, c. 1470

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

All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.

—Plotinus, c. 255

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

—Thomas Szasz, 1970