Archive

Quotes

Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

—Woody Allen, 1979

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

—Saint Augustine, c. 400

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 are times when reality becomes too complex for oral communication. But legend gives it a form by which it pervades the whole world.

—Jean-Luc Godard, 1965

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.

—Albert Einstein, 1930

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

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

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

—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952

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

—Tom Robbins, 1976

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

—William Shakespeare, 1592

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

—Lucretius, c. 58 BC

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

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

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