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

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

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.

The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.

The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.

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

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.

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

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching toward him and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.

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.