Archive

Quotes

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

—Thomas Malory, c. 1470

Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

—Woody Allen, 1979

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

—Robert Southey, 1809

A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.

—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952

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

—Plotinus, c. 255

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

—Robert Wilson, 1991

Have you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, a leopard, a wolf, or a bull?

—Aristophanes, 423 BC

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

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

—Derek Walcott, 1986

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

—Tertullian, c. 200

Appearances often are deceiving.

—Aesop, c. 550 BC

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

—Robertson Davies, 1985

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