The fact is certain because it is impossible.

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.

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

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

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

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

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

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.

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

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

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.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

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