Archive

Quotes

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.

—Albert Einstein, 1930

There are times when reality becomes too complex for oral communication. But legend gives it a form by which it pervades the whole world.

—Jean-Luc Godard, 1965

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

—Robert Wilson, 1991

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

—Saint Augustine, c. 400

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

—Sophocles, c. 441 BC

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

—Plato, c. 375 BC

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

—Robertson Davies, 1985

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.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878

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

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

—Derek Walcott, 1986

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

—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952

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

—Albert Camus, 1951

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.

—William Shakespeare, 1592