Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe.

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

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.

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.

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