Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

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

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.

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 mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.

The Mughal’s nature is such that they demand miracles, but if a miracle were to be performed by some upright follower of our religion, they would say that it had been brought about by magic and sorcery. They would strike him down with spears or would stone him to death.

Egypt was the mother of magicians.

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

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

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

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.