Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.

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 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.

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.

To blow and to swallow at the same time is not easy; I cannot at the same time be here and also there.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

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