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Quotes

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

—Abraham the Jew, c. 1400

Men were born to lie, and women to believe them.

—John Gay, 1728

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.

—Noël Coward, 1930

We should always presume the disease to be curable until its own nature proves it otherwise.

—Peter Mere Latham, c. 1845

In a court of fowls, the cockroach never wins its case.

—Rwandan proverb

We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.

—Barbara Ward, 1972

One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.

—La Rochefoucauld, 1664

Everyone who is sick is someone else’s patient zero.

—Leslie Jamison, 2020

Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.

—Sammy Davis Jr., 1965

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

Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.

—Miriam Makeba, 1988

Doctors don’t know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in spirit.

—William Saroyan, 1943

What hath night to do with sleep?

—John Milton, 1637