Archive

Quotes

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

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

—Lucretius, c. 58 BC

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

—Dai Vernon, 1994

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

—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1939

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

—Pablo Picasso, 1929

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

—Sophocles, c. 441 BC

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

The Mughal’s nature is such that they demand miracles, but if a miracle were to be performed by some upright follower of our religion, they would say that it had been brought about by magic and sorcery. They would strike him down with spears or would stone him to death.

—Fr. Antonio Monserrate, 1590

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

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

—Plato, c. 375 BC

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

—Plautus, c. 200 BC

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

—John Locke, 1689

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

—Robertson Davies, 1985