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

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

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.

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

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

God is alive. Magic is afoot.

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.

To blow and to swallow at the same time is not easy; I cannot at the same time be here and also there.

Appearances often are deceiving.

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

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.

The fact is certain because it is impossible.