Magic Quotes - Page 19

• Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them!

  Oscar Wilde

  Vivid, Subtle, Terrible

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Joseph Bristow, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts”, p.22, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.

  Jim Butcher

  Giving, Choices, Political

  Jim Butcher (2007). “Proven Guilty: A Novel Of the Dresden Files”, p.258, Penguin

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• A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.…We know that the world is not all sleight of hand and deception because we are in it, we are part of it. Actually we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat. The only difference beween us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Hands, White, Differences

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• A man fell in love with Jeanne, and she tried to love him. But she complained that he uttered such ordinary words, that he could never say the magic phrase which would open her being.

  Anais Nin

  Men, Ordinary, Phrases

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• Magic things are fond of deceptions.

  Tom Robbins

  Deception

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Jitterbug Perfume”, p.21, Bantam

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• They're afraid of change, and we must change. They're afraid of the young, and we are the young. They're afraid of music, and music is our life. They're afraid of books, and knowledge, and ideas. They're most afraid of our magic.

  James Patterson

  Life, Book, Ideas

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• There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the Other Lands. Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book? Where the harum-scarum magic of small wild creatures meets the magic of Man, where the language of the wind and the rain and the trees can be understood, there we will find the Raven King.

  Susanna Clarke

  Kings, Rain, Book

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• I'm so alive. As I stand facing the beauty of the never-ending Pacific Ocean, a late afternoon breeze blows down from the hills behind. As always, it is a beautiful day. The sun is making its final descent. The magic is about to begin. The skies are ready to burn with brilliance, as it turns from a soft blue to a bright orange. Looking towards the West, I stare in awe at the hypnotic power of the waves. A giant curl begins to take form, then breaks with a thundering clap as it crashes on the shore.

  Dave Pelzer

  Beautiful, Ocean, Blow

  Dave Pelzer (2010). “A Child Called It”, p.53, Hachette UK

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• When you're touched by magic, nothing's ever quite the same again. What really makes me sad is all those people who never have the chance to know that touch. They're too busy, or they just don't hold with make-believe, so they shut the door without really knowing it was there to be opened in the first place.

  Charles de Lint

  Believe, Doors, Knowing

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• Throughout his life, Albert Einstein would retain the intuition and the awe of a child. He never lost his sense of wonder at the magic of nature's phenomena-magnetic fields, gravity, inertia, acceleration, light beams-which grown-ups find so commonplace. He retained the ability to hold two thoughts in his mind simultaneously, to be puzzled when they conflicted, and to marvel when he could smell an underlying unity. "People like you and me never grow old," he wrote a friend later in life. "We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.

  Walter Isaacson

  Children, Light, Later In Life

  Walter Isaacson (2008). “Einstein: His Life and Universe”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

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• we have to listen to the child we once were, the child who still exists inside us. That child understands magic moments. We can stifle its cries, but we cannot silence its voice.The child we once were is still there. Blessed are the children, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.If we are not reborn if we cannot learn to look at life with the innocence and the enthusiasm o childhood it makes no sense to go on living.

  Paulo Coelho

  Children, Blessed, Magic Moments

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• 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Past, Technology, Impossible Things

  Profiles of the Future ch. 2 (1962).

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• Whence did the wond'rous mystic art arise, / Of painting SPEECH, and speaking to the eyes? / That we by tracing magic lines are taught, / How to embody, and to colour THOUGHT?

  Marshall McLuhan

  Art, Eye, Lines

  Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore, Jerome Agel (1996). “The medium is the massage: an inventory of effects”, Hardwired

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• Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!     No hungry generations tread thee down;   The voice I hear this passing night was heard     In ancient days by emperor and clown:   Perhaps the self-same song that found a path      Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,       She stood in tears amid the alien corn;             The same that ofttimes hath     Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam       Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

  John Keats

  Song, Home, Heart

  "Ode to a Nightingale" l. 61 (1820)

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• Beware of her fair hair, for she excels All women in the magic of her locks; And when she winds them round a young man's neck, She will not ever set him free again.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Hair, Wind

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1832). “Faustus: from the German of Goethe”, p.76

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• For mightier far
  Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway
  Of magic potent over sun and star,
  Is love, though oft to agony distrest,
  And though his favourite be feeble woman's breast.

  William Wordsworth

  Love, Life, Stars

  William Wordsworth (1994). “The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth”, p.210, Wordsworth Editions

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• Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic far beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!

  J. K. Rowling

  Music, Eye, Bedtime

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• War vies with magic in its efforts to get something for nothing.

  Lewis Mumford

  Peace, War, Ubuntu

  Lewis Mumford, Langdon Winner (2010). “Technics and Civilization”, p.83, University of Chicago Press

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• During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favour by means of magic and prayer.

  Albert Einstein

  Spiritual, Prayer, Mean

  Albert Einstein (2011). “Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words”, p.22, Open Road Media

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• There are two ways of avoiding fear: one is by persuading ourselves that we are immune from disaster, and the other is by the practice of sheer courage. The latter is difficult, and to everybody becomes impossible at a certain point. The former has therefore always been more popular. Primitive magic has the purpose of securing safety, either by injuring enemies, or by protecting oneself by talismans, spells, or incantations.

  Bertrand Russell

  Practice, Two, Safety

  Bertrand Russell (1986). “Bertrand Russell on God and Religion”

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• There is a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed.

  Kate Douglas Wiggin

  Travel, Going Away, Lenses

  Kate Douglas Wiggin (2016). “REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM & NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA (Children’s Book Classics): Adventure Novels”, p.357, e-artnow

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• When the music and dance create with accord...their magic captivates both the heart and the mind.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Dance, Heart, Dancing

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• Dance is one of the most powerful forms of magical ritual...It is an outer expression of the inner spirit.

  Ted Andrews

  Dance, Powerful, Expression

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• So easy to take it for granted, but this is something no normal human was made to see. The world of magic has blessed me with wonders and it's only right to stop every now and then to appreciate it.

  Darren Shan

  Blessed, Appreciate, World

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• We called the new [fourth] quark the "charmed quark" because we were pleased, and fascinated by the symmetry it brought to the subnuclear world. "Charm" also means a "a magical device to avert evil," and in 1970 it was realized that the old three quark theory ran into very serious problems. ... As if by magic the existence of the charmed quark would [solve those problems].

  Sheldon Lee Glashow

  Mean, Science, Evil

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