The fear of the Lord is true wisdom, and he who hath it not can in no way penetrate the true secrets of magic.

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

Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.

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

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.

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

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

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.

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

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

There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching toward him and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.