Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.

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

In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.

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.

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

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

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

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

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.

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

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.