I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.
—Thomas Malory, c. 1470Quotes
One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCA miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.
—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952Have you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, a leopard, a wolf, or a bull?
—Aristophanes, 423 BCIn the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.
—Thomas Szasz, 1970The 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. 1400Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.
—Derek Walcott, 1986Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.
—Sophocles, c. 441 BCThe mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.
—Dai Vernon, 1994The 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.
—Fr. Antonio Monserrate, 1590The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.
—Italo Calvino, 1967Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
—Lucretius, c. 58 BCEverything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.
—Pablo Picasso, 1929