The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.

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.

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

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

To ensure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough; a police force is needed as well.

Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

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

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

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

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

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

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

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