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

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

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

Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost.

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

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

Egypt was the mother of magicians.

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

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

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.

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.

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.