Magic Quotes (10)
Coastal sailing as long as it is perfectly safe and easy commands no magic. Overseas expeditions are invariably bound up with ceremonies and ritual. Man resorts to magic only where chance and circumstances are not fully controlled by knowledge.
Culture (1931), 636.
See also: | Chance (40) | Circumstance (8) | Coast (3) | Control (14) | Knowledge (341) | Ritual (4) | Safety (10)
Oh! That the Chemist's magic art
Could crystallize this sacred treasure!...
That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source;
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.
Could crystallize this sacred treasure!...
That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source;
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.
&$039;On a Tear', in Samuel Rogers et al., The Poetical Works of Rogers, Campbell, J. Montombery, Lamb, and Kirke White (1836), 101.
See also: | Chemist (24) | Guide (3) | Law (145) | Law Of Gravitation (3) | Mould (5) | Orbit (21) | Planet (40) | Sphere (4) | Tear (3) | Treasure (6)
Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work.
The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer (1993), 66.
See also: | Correction (10) | Discovery (178) | Evidence (37) | Improvement (9) | Knowledge (341) | Scientific Method (62)
Somewhere in the arrangement of this world there seems to be a great concern about giving us delight, which shows that, in the universe, over and above the meaning of matter and forces, there is a message conveyed through the magic touch of personality. ...
Is it merely because the rose is round and pink that it gives me more satisfaction than the gold which could buy me the necessities of life, or any number of slaves. ... Somehow we feel that through a rose the language of love reached our hearts.
Is it merely because the rose is round and pink that it gives me more satisfaction than the gold which could buy me the necessities of life, or any number of slaves. ... Somehow we feel that through a rose the language of love reached our hearts.
The Religion of Man (1931), 102. Quoted in H. E. Hunter, The Divine Proportion (1970), 6.
See also: | Arrangement (8) | Concern (5) | Delight (6) | Force (26) | Gold (11) | Language (39) | Life (169) | Matter (64) | Meaning (11) | Message (3) | Necessity (17) | Personality (6) | Satisfaction (6) | Slave (7) | Touch (4) | Universe (143) | World (49)
The real name for 'science' is magic.
Jeffty is Five (1977). Quoted in Gary Westfahl, Science Fiction Quotations (2005), 322.
See also: | Science (463)
There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the changes on its corollaries; that's philosophy. Two: Record many facts. Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that's science. Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolent Universe controlled by Murphy's Law, sometimes offset by Brewster's Factor; that's engineering.
Circulated as an e-mail 'fortune cookie', an interesting remark included with the signature.
See also: | Engineering (38) | Fact (146) | Guess (6) | Murphy's Law (2) | Philosophy (77) | School (18) | Science (463) | Universe (143)
Thus you may multiply each stone 4 times & no more for they will then become oyles shining in ye dark and fit for magicall uses. You may ferment them with ☉ [gold] and [silver], by keeping the stone and metal in fusion together for a day, & then project upon metalls. This is the multiplication of ye stone in vertue. To multiply it in weight ad to it of ye first Gold whether philosophic or vulgar.
Praxis (c.1693), quoted in Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy In Newton's Thought (1991), 304.
See also: | Alchemy (10) | Fusion (5) | Gold (11) | Metal (8) | Multiplication (4) | Silver (4) | Stone (5) | Weight (7)
What about the magical number seven? What about the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven daughters of Atlas in the Pleiades, the seven ages of man, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colors, the seven notes of the musical scale, and the seven days of the week? What about the seven-point rating scale, the seven categories for absolute judgment, the seven objects in the span of attention, and the seven digits in the span of immediate memory? For the present I propose to withhold judgment. Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all these sevens, something just calling out for us to discover it. But I suspect that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence.
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two (1956), 42-3.
Where lies the line between sorcery and science? It is only a matter of terminology, my friend.
Cyber Way (1990), 204.
See also: | Science (463)
[Magic] enables man to carry out with confidence his important tasks, to maintain his poise and his mental integrity in fits of anger, in the throes of hate, of unrequited love, of despair and anxiety. The function of magic is to ritualize man's optimism, to enhance his faith in the victory of hope over fear. Magic expresses the greater value for man of confidence over doubt, of steadfastness over vacillation, of optimism over pessimism.
Magic, Science and Religion (1925), 90.
See also: | Anger (3) | Anxiety (2) | Confidence (4) | Despair (6) | Doubt (31) | Enable (3) | Faith (28) | Fear (25) | Function (11) | Hate (4) | Hope (17) | Importance (18) | Integrity (2) | Love (30) | Mind (125) | Pessimism (2) | Ritual (4) | Task (6) | Value (11) | Victory (3)