Magical Quotes - 2
More Magical Quotes
Saramago is ... interesting, but I don't think I would put it higher than that ... [he] ventures too far into the realm of 'magic realism' for my taste. Reality itself is magical enough without inventing whimsicalities.
john banville— Quote from The militant magician, The Guardian (28 December 2002)
Any technology that does not appear magical is insufficiently advanced.
gregory benford— This is derived from the third of Clarke's three laws : "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (It is often confused with Gehm's corrollary, published several years earlier : "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." )
Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement.
willa cather— Book I, Ch. 1
I have invented nothing. I have simply documented a magical alchemy that I want to share.
gregory colbert— As quoted in "Dances With Whales" by Alan Riding in The New York Times (22 April 2002)
The true nature of the gods is that of magical images shaped out of the astral plane by mankind's thought, and influenced by the mind.
dion fortune— Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah
I'm over my heart's desire / I feel cold, but I'm back in the fireLove is a litany / A magical mystery / And all in good time"
Noel Gallagher— The Shock of the Lightning
The brutality and uncouthness of many of the revolutionary leaders has not prevented them from becoming popular myths. Villa still gallops through the north, in songs and ballads; Zapata dies at every popular fair. ... It is the Revolution, the magical word, the word that is going to hange everything, that is going to bring us immense delight and a quick death.
pancho villa— Octavio Paz, as quoted in Staging Politics in Mexico: The Road to Neoliberalism (2004) by Stuart Alexander Day, p. 38
Frazer's account of the magical and religious views of mankind is unsatisfactory; it makes these views look like errors .
ludwig wittgenstein— Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119
Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical .
roger bacon— Cited by Peter Nicholls (1979) The Encyclopedia of science fiction: an illustrated A to Z. p. 376
The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and (as it were) fuses , each into each, by that synthetic and magical power, to which I would exclusively appropriate the name of Imagination.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge— Ch. XIV (Biographia Literaria (1817))
There is a single main definition of the object of all magical Ritual. It is the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or, in the language of Mysticism, Union with God.
aleister crowley— Ch. 1 : The Principles of Ritual
I have always enjoyed dealing with a slightly surrealistic situation and presenting it in a realistic manner. I've always liked fairy tales and myths, magical stories. I think they are somehow closer to the sense of reality one feels today than the equally stylized "realistic" story in which a great deal of selectivity and omission has to occur in order to preserve its "realist" style.
Stanley Kubrick— Quoted in Kubrick : Inside a Film Artist's Maze (2000) by Thomas Allen Nelson, p.14
This magical universe is so faithful in waiting for us to get out of our own way. Many people do not realize that the sharpening of wit occurs when one humbles their wit. It is in the humble mindset that beauty and magic flow freely.
steve maraboli— p. 101 (Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010))
Much of the magical effect that poetry gives of rendering everything it touches pellucid comes from the necessity of compression that it imposes. The impossibility of pausing in poetry as long as may be needed to make sense clear causes many a set of words actually deficient in linguistic workmanship to pass for an eloquent brevity.
laura riding— "The Promise of Words" in London Review of Books, Vol. 17, No. 17, p.23
In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil to acquire magical powers. Nowadays they acquire those powers from science, and find themselves compelled to become devils. There is no hope for the world unless power can be tamed, and brought into the service, not of this or that group of fanatical tyrants, but of the whole human race, white and yellow and black, fascist and communist and democrat; for science has made it inevitable that all must live or all must die.
bertrand russell— Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers.
The autodecrement is not magical.
larry wall— In the perl man page
Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical.
— Roger Bacon, as quoted in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction : An Illustrated A to Z (1979), by Peter Nicholls, p. 376
The old city, which is partially encircled by a crenelated wall, is notable for its town planning avenues; divided the city into neat rectangles, each of which specializes in certain crafts. At dusk, the sunset shaded buildings have a magical glow.
— Lonely Planet, in "The Cities Book: A Journey Through the Best Cities in the World", p.190
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
— Eden Phillpotts, A Shadow Passes (1918) page 19
The essence of things is revealed as always the same, a substrate of domination. This identity constitutes the unity of nature. Neither it nor the unity of the subject was presupposed by magical incantation.
— E. Jephcott, trans., p. 6 (Sourced)
The object of this pantomime is a form of magical transformation...Kathakali is at once ritual as well as drama...It remains modern and at the same time ritualistic in its abstract chrachterization, in its concentration on the visuals, and in its belief in magical transformation.
— In Washington Post under the title “The Exotic Dance Drama of India”, quoted in p.7
Being an art born out of the soil, Manipuri dance which achieves classicity through the ages, retains still the abstract, magical quality associated with the Lai Haraoba tradition.
— Satyajit Ray in Elangbam Nilakanta Singh (1982). Aspects of Indian culture. Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy. p. 75.
The persuasive techniques used by totalist cults to bind and exploit the members, while not magical or infallible, are sufficiently powerful and effective to assure the recruitment of a significant percentage of those approached, and the retention of a significant percentage of those enlisted.
— Louis Jolyon West "Persuasive Techniques in Religious Cults," in: Marc Galanter (1989) Cults and New Religious Movements. p. 4
...yantras, like some mandalas are used for worship in desire-oriented (kamya rites), but their main purpose is magical.
— in P.30 (Maònòdalas and Yantras in the Hindu Traditions)
