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.

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.

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.

Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.

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.

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

The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.

The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.

Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.

Egypt was the mother of magicians.

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.

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