Archive

Quotes

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

—Tertullian, c. 200

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

God is alive. Magic is afoot.

—Leonard Cohen, 1966

To ensure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough; a police force is needed as well.

—Albert Camus, 1951

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

—Robertson Davies, 1985

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

—Robert Southey, 1809

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

—Italo Calvino, 1967

The fear of the Lord is true wisdom, and he who hath it not can in no way penetrate the true secrets of magic.

—Abraham the Jew, c. 1400

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.

—Elias Canetti, 1960

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

Appearances often are deceiving.

—Aesop, c. 550 BC

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.

—Robert Wilson, 1991