Magic Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

One day I went alone to the river to enjoy myself as usual. When I was a short distance from the masonry, however, I was horrified to observe that the water had risen and was carrying me along swiftly.… The pressure against my chest was great and I was barely able to keep my head above the surface.… Slowly and gradually I became exhausted and unable to withstand the strain longer. Just as I was about to let go, to be dashed against the rocks below, I saw in a flash of light a familiar diagram illustrating the hydraulic principle that the pressure of a fluid in motion is proportionate to the area exposed and automatically I turned on my left side. As if by magic, the pressure was reduced.
Chapter 3 : The Rotary Magnetic Field

The masterless man... afflicted with the magic of the necessary words.... Words that may become alive and walk up and down in the hearts of the hearers.

Rudyard Kipling

The whole mystery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labor as long as they take the form of commodities, vanishes therefore, so soon as we come to other forms of production.

The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph.

Henry David Thoreau

Art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul. But we who are older use neither glass mirrors nor works of art. We have a direct sense of life. When you gain that you will put aside your mirrors and statues, your toys and your dolls.

George Bernard Shaw

Words and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing, and even today words retain much of their magical power.

The use of soul-force for turning stones into bread would have been considered, as it is still considered, as black magic.

Magic and all that is ascribed to it is a deep presentiment of the powers of science.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men's minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.

This rough magic I here abjure and when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book.

William Shakespeare

Time continued to pass - the oldest trick in the world, and maybe the only one that really is magic.

There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me.

Love works magic.
It is the final purpose
Of the world story,
The Amen of the universe.

Magic and devils offend our sense of probabilities.

I stepped into the bookshop and breathed in that perfume of paper and magic that strangely no one had ever thought of bottling.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I believe that the combination of pencil and memory creates a kind of practical magic, and magic is dangerous.

The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people. Just pronounce the magic word "Art," and everything is O.K. Rotting corpses with snails crawling over them are O.K.; kicking little girls in the head is O.K.; even a film like L'Age d'Or is O.K.

With acting, it's like becoming another person. I think that's neat, especially when you totally forget. If you totally forget, which I love to do, that's when it's magic.

Michael Jackson

In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never out-step, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York!

I revere the memory of Mr. F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle; it was not ecstasy but it was comfort.

Charles Dickens

Somehow, every time the magic of fol-de-rol tried conclusions with the magic of science, the magic of fol-de-rol got left.

Perseus wore a magic cap that the monsters he hunted down might not see him.
We draw the magic cap down over eyes and ears as a make-believe that there are no monsters.

Just because you're allowed to use magic now you don't have to whip your wands out for every tiny little thing!