Archive

Quotes

One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

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.

—Roald Dahl, 1990

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.

—Edward Bellamy, 1888

The 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. 1400

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

—Marlene Dietrich, 1962

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

—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

—Tertullian, c. 200

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

—Dai Vernon, 1994

God is alive. Magic is afoot.

—Leonard Cohen, 1966

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

—Saint Augustine, c. 400

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

—Plotinus, c. 255

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

—Aristophanes, 423 BC

Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost.

—Robert Southey, 1809