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Quotations about magic
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
In meditation we should not look for a “method” or “system,” but cultivate an “attitude,” and “outlook”: faith, openness, attention, reverence, expectation, supplication, trust, and joy.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]
Contemplative Prayer (1973)
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Charles "Charlie" Stross (b. 1964) British writer
The Nightmare Stacks, ch. 18 (2016)
(Source)
A variant of Clarke's Third Law.
As the man put it: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Any sufficiently advanced alien intelligence is indistinguishable from God — the angry monotheistic sadist subtype. And the elder ones … aren’t friendly. (See? I told you I’d rather be an atheist!)
Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast over nature.
Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974) Polish-English humanist and mathematician
Lecture, MIT (26 Feb 1953)
Reprinted in "The Creative Mind," Sec. 4, Science and Human Values (1961).
Books are a uniquely portable magic.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
J. B. Priestley (1894-1984) English author, dramatist [John Boyne Priestley]
Delight (1949)
“So the moon effects magic, why?”
“I’m working on several theories,” I said. “But I’m currently favoring the hypothesis that the moon has a seemingly arbitrary effect on magic because it likes to piss me off.”
“That’s a theory with a high degree of applicability to other spheres of life,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” I said, and we spontaneously fist bumped.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Foxglove Summer (2014)
“There’s weird shit,” I said. “And we deal with the weird shit, but normally it turns out that there’s a perfectly rational explanation.” Which is often that a wizard did it.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Foxglove Summer (2014)
More to the point, nameless hideous monsters are freaking terrifying. You always fear what you don’t know, what you don’t understand, and the first step to having understanding of something is to know what to call it. It’s a habit of mine to give names to anything I wind up interacting with if it doesn’t have one readily available. Names have power — magically, sure, but far more important, they have psychological power. Something horrible with a name holds less power over you, less terror, than something horrible without one.
“Octokongs,” I pronounced grimly. “Why did it have to be octokongs?”Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Skin Game (2014)
“You put a spell on the dog,” I said as we left the house.
“Just a small one,” said Nightingale.
“So magic is real,” I said. “Which makes you a … what?”
“A wizard.”
“Like Harry Potter?”
Nightingale sighed. “No,” he said. “Not like Harry Potter.”
“In what way?”
“I’m not a fictional character,” said Nightingale.Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)
You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. … Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
Texts and Pretexts, “Amor Fati” (1932)
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried — “La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
I should mention that there had been many floating castles before the Interregnum. I guess the spell isn’t all that difficult, if you care to put enough work into it in the first place. The reason that they are currently out of vogue is the Interregnum itself. One day, over four hundred years ago now, sorcery stopped working … just like that. If you look around in the right places in the countryside you will still find broken husks and shattered remnants of what were once floating castles.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Jhereg, ch. 7 (1983)
There’s more magic in a baby’s first giggle than in any firestorm a wizard can conjure up, and don’t let anyone tell you any different.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Fool Moon (2001)
“Well, I suppose one ought not to employ a magician and then complain that he does not behave like other people,” said Wellington.
Susanna Clarke (b. 1949) British author
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2004)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
Profiles of the Future, “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination” (Clarke’s Third Law) (1962; rev. 1973)
