Incantations Quotes

As to his religious notions - why, as Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic. ~ George Eliot

There was an abyss. And books contained magical incantations to raise what was hidden there, all the great mysteries. ~ Stephen King

It is not too much to say that next after the passion to learn there is no quality so indispensable to the successful prosecutionof science as imagination. Find me a people whose early medicine is not mixed up with magic and incantations, and I will find you a people devoid of all scientific ability. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce

The witch is a dangerous person. Neither his appearance nor his behaviour betray his satanic nature. He does not wear special clothing, he does not have magical instruments. He does not boil potions, does not prepare poisons, does not fall into a trance, and does not perform incantations. He acts by means of the psychic power he was born. Malefaction is a congenital trait of his personality. The fact that he does evil and brings misfortune owes nothing to his predilections. It brings him not special pleasure. He simply is that way. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

Writers possess magic. It's in their words.
They compose phrases as powerful as incantations, creating illusions in the minds of readers. These spells make eyes envision things that aren't real; they make hearts feel things that aren't actual. A writer's work is to pen enchantments meant to entrance and hypnotize the mind, causing neglect of all other duties and responsibilities in order for the reader to remain a puppet controlled by the writer's wand. And if some foul friend does manage to break the spell, he is despised for it. His heroics are too late in coming. The words―the fairy tales―have seeped beyond the body and into the soul, taking possession. Our poor reader is infected, compromised, never to be cured. The notion of magic found in simple words such as, 'Once upon a time...' has always fascinated me. It is no wonder I am compelled to write. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The earliest storytellers were magi, seers, bards, griots, shamans. They were, it would seem, as old as time, and as terrifying to gaze upon as the mysteries with which they wrestled. They wrestled with mysteries and transformed them into myths which coded the world and helped the community to live through one more darkness, with eyes wide open and hearts set alight.

"I can see them now, the old masters. I can see them standing on the other side of the flames, speaking in the voices of lions, or thunder, or monsters, or heroes, heroines, or the earth, or fire itself -- for they had to contain all voices within them, had to be all things and nothing. They had to have the ability to become lightning, to become a future homeland, to be the dreaded guide to the fabled land where the community will settle and fructify. They had to be able to fight in advance all the demons they would encounter, and summon up all the courage needed on the way, to prophesy about all the requisite qualities that would ensure their arrival at the dreamt-of land.

"The old masters had to be able to tell stories that would make sleep possible on those inhuman nights, stories that would counter terror with enchantment, or with a greater terror. I can see them, beyond the flames, telling of a hero's battle with a fabulous beast -- the beast that is in the hero."

"The storyteller's art changed through the ages. From battling dread in word and incantations before their people ~ Ben Okri

The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force. ~ Walter Lippmann

Professor Severus Snape: There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few ...
[stares at Draco Malfoy]
Professor Severus Snape: Who possess, the predisposition ... I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.
[notices Harry scribbling on his paper]
Professor Severus Snape: Then again, maybe some of you have come to Hogwarts in possession of abilities so formidable that you feel confident enough to not pay attention!
[steps over to Harry]
Professor Severus Snape: Mister Potter. Our new celebrity. ~ J.K. Rowling

She sat down at a table, with books piled high around her and began looking through them rapidly, looking for some information concerning marriage with mortals. Dust rose from the books and swirled about her, dancing and glittering wherever the light struck it.

Mika leaned over her shoulder curiously, repeating softly to himself some of the incantations he read there. At once there were faint rustlings and sighs in the air.

"Stop, stop!" Flumpdoria cried. "You silly thing, do you want all the jinns and genii in the world bumping about in this room? Don't say those spells aloud. And stop looking over my shoulder. It gives me the creeps. ~ Marian Cockrell

Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal: the open mind against the credulous; the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need). Perhaps above all, we affirm life over the cults of death and human sacrifice and are afraid, not of inevitable death, but rather of a human life that is cramped and distorted by the pathetic need to offer mindless adulation, or the dismal belief that the laws of nature respond to wailings and incantations. ~ Christopher Hitchens

He selected one of these incantations and began to chant in a loud, wailing voice. All the clocks in the house suddenly went off at once, though it was only three-twenty; the copper pots hanging in the kitchen clanged and whanged against each other; and a couple of the wizard's books fell off their shelves with a clump. But nothing else happened. Prospero slammed the magic book shut and slumped into an overstuffed chair. He fumbled in his smoking stand for his pipe and tobacco. "I learned that spell fifty years ago," he mumbled as he lit his pipe. "And I still don't know what it's for. ~ John Bellairs

Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.
~ Ezra Pound

Every morning I have been looking at CNN to see if there is any reason for hope . I see a few large and impressive peace protests here and there around the world, but mostly I see empty robot faces monotonously reciting the magic incantations, "We must support the President" and "We must support our troops", both of which mean the killing must continue. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

Come now, Pendragon Princess. You didn't get dressed up to die, we both know that. ~ Monique Snyman

Life consists Of propositions about life. The human Revery is a solitude in which We compose these propositions, torn by dreams, By the terrible incantations of defeats And by the fear that the defeats and the dreams are one. The whole race is a poet that writes down The eccentric propositions of its fate. ~ Wallace Stevens

Work with sound until you are absolutely amazed that you can produce such a sound and it seems to you that you are just the instrument to which the divine pied piper blows the whisper of the incantations of his magic spell. ~ Vilayat Inayat Khan

Oh, my dear Kepler, how I wish that we could have one hearty laugh together. Here, at Padua, is the principal professor of philosophy, whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass, [telescope] which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not here? what shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly! and to hear the professor of philosophy at Pisa laboring before the grand duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the sky. ~ Galileo Galilei

Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that. ~ Marcus Aurelius

I myself have seen this woman draw the stars from the sky; she diverts the course of a fast-flowing river with her incantations; her voice makes the earth gape, it lures the spirits from the tombs, send the bones tumbling from the dying pyre. At her behest, the sad clouds scatter; at her behest, snow falls from a summer's sky. ~ Tibullus

Yet I saw crypts when I looked at him, and I heard the beat of kettledrums. I saw torchlit fields where I had never been, heard vague incantations, felt the heat of raging fires on my face. And they didn't come out of him, these visions. Rather I drew them out on my own.
Yet I never had Nicolas, mortal or immortal, been so alluring. Never had Gabrielle held me so in thrall.
Dear God, this is love. This is desire. And all my past amours have been but the shadow of this.
- Lestat de Lioncourt ~ Anne Rice

This girl is magic. She's wild incantations. She's that spark that lit me back to life and I'm burning for her. ~ Rebecca Paula

Knowledge has always been important, of course. The ancient Egyptians did not raise the stones for the pyramids relying on the incantations of their gods. The waters in the irrigation canals of the great Indus Civilisation did not flow according to the laws of ignorance. Knowledge has always been power and wealth. ~ Mahathir Mohamad

Poetry Is The Language Of Mysticism &
Discourse. It Is The Whisper In The Dark,
The Shadow In The Light. Poetry Is An Incantation From The Depths Of Your Very Soul. ~ R.M. Engelhardt

This magnificent refuge is inside you. Enter. Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway. Step around the poisonous vipers that slither at your feet, attempting to throw you off your course. Be bold. Be humble. Put away the incense and forget the incantations they taught you. Ask no permission from the authorities. Slip away. Close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you home. ~ Mirabai Starr

It seems to me that the orthodox religions always know more about the Devil than I do and can describe him in more detail, and if I hadn't a nice type of mind I'd begin to wonder what company they keep when the moon rides high in the sky and good witches are doing simple little incantations and asking for spiritual guidance. ~ Sybil Leek

Incantations for Muggles:
The Role of Ubiquitous Web 2.0 Technologies in Everyday Life ~ Danah Boyd

There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few who cherish ... I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death." - Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. ~ J.K. Rowling

It is never too late To overcome despair, To turn sorrow into resolve And pain into purpose. It is never too late to alter my world, Not by magical incantations Or manipulations of the cards Or deciphering the stars. But by opening myself To curative forces buried within, To hidden energies The powers in my interior self. In sickness and in dying, it is never too late Living, I teach, Dying, I teach, How I face pain and fear, Others observe me, children, adults, Students of life and death, Learn from my bearing, my posture, My philosophy. ~ Rochelle B. Weinstein

Regarding 'Jabez's Prayer', I will say at once that I am a very poor Christian, and indeed a bad man. My besetting sins are many, and the least of them are the fleshlier ones: the really deadly ones are pride and intellectual arrogance. But I can honestly say I have never sunk to confusing prayer: the soul's colloquy with the Creator, mortal man's dialogue with the Deity: with magical incantation and the ritual of the 'spell. ~ Markham Shaw Pyle

Explain to me again the difference between superstitious beliefs or pagan incantations, and scientific ones. Be braver - you cannot cross a chasm in two small jumps. ~ David Lloyd George

Science is simply a logical process of discovering truths about the world we live in; the illusion is that science is some sort of a set of strange rules, a religion that speaks algebra or a magical group of incantations and spells. ~ Robert Todd Carroll

It takes a heavy commitment to quality education for all to avoid that stratification of society, those needless degrees of separation. But even the present-day United States has lost what commitment it used to have to free education of high quality. Anyone reading the annual surveys of science literacy (another example: fewer than half of Americans know that the earth orbits the sun once a year) has to wonder how badly most people are going to be left behind, further along into the 21st century, whether they too will become "stubborn, apathetic, and perverse" toward a scientific and technological world they must view as magical, beyond their comprehension, accessible only via the right incantations. ~ William H. Calvin

I would have to say the power to heal. This show has enhanced my relationship to magic. I would have called it prayer. There are definitely certain incantations that I do now. ~ Alyssa Milano

Man's greatest advances are weapon advances. Culture follows from weaponry, we are militant like the animals and birds - defending our homes. No matter how far back you go in history, along with the struggle for existence, along with the survival necessities - kill or be killed, eat or be eaten - there is a hunger for something spiritual. He invents God, prayers, incantations to something above him. Why? This is not brought out - this is not weapon culture. ~ Frank Capra

Lisa, love is magical," Rema said. "Scientists give such simplified explanations for it, and they're wrong, because love isn't something that happens in your brain. Love happens in your soul. ~ Monique Snyman

It was sort of like Macbeth, thought Fat Charlie, an hour later; in fact, if the witches in Macbeth had been four little old ladies and if, instead of stirring cauldrons and intoning dread incantations, they had just welcomed Macbeth in and fed him turkey and rice and peas spread out on white china plates on a red-and-white patterned plastic tablecloth
not to mention sweet potato pudding and spice cabbage
and encouraged him to take second helpings, and thirds, and then, when Macbeth had declaimed that nay, he was stuffed nigh unto bursting and on his oath could truly eat no more, the witches had pressed upon him their own special island rice pudding and a large slice of Mrs. Bustamonte's famous pineapple upside-down cake, it would have been exactly like Macbeth. ~ Neil Gaiman

In primitive society, where uniformity of occupation is the rule, and the distribution of the community into various classes of workers has hardly begun, every man is more or less his own magician; he practices charms and incantations for his own good and the injury of his enemies. ~ James G. Frazer

The soul is cured of its maladies by certain incantations; these incantations are beautiful reasons, from which temperance is generated in souls. ~ Socrates

There are no Demonic incantations in this book. I am not an expert on the subject, so if you were hoping to read this and be able to conjure up some demon, I can't give you the knowledge on how to do it while on this plane of existence, or to send it back, which believe me, you WILL WANT TO KNOW A LOT MORE THAN HOW TO GET ONE TO SHOW UP. ~ Ivan D'Amico

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

The Watchers spread out over all the land, claiming their peoples and unveiling secrets to the sons of men - dark occult secrets that humanity should never have known. They taught mankind the ways of sorcery and alchemy, incantations and the cutting of magical roots, casting of spells and the arts of divination, necromancy, and astrology. Elohim fast became a distant memory for mankind as they worshipped and served the creation instead of the Creator. ~ Brian Godawa

Who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish. ~ Allen Ginsberg

When I contrast the loving Jesus, comprehending all things in his ample and tender charity, with those who profess to bear his name, marking their zeal by what they do not love, it seems to me as though men, like the witches of old, had read the Bible backward, and had taken incantations out of it for evil, rather than inspiration for good. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin

That phrase "hocus-pocus" started out as "hocus-pocus dominocus", and was, in the beginning, a mocking imitation of the holy incantations of the Catholic Church's Latin liturgy. So say the lexicologists. ~ L. M. Boyd

There is an old Chinese tale about the woman whose only son had died. In her grief, she went to the holy man and said, 'What prayers, what magical incantations do you have to bring my son back to life?' Instead of sending her away or reasoning with her, he said to her, 'Fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. We will use it to drive the sorrow out of your life.' The woman set off at once in search of that magical mustard seed. She came first to a splendid mansion, knocked at the door and said, 'I am looking for a home that has never known sorrow. Is this such a place? It is very important to me.' They told her 'You've certainly come to the wrong place,' and began to describe all the tragic things that had recently befallen them. The woman said to herself, 'Who is better able to help these poor unfortunate people than I, who have had misfortune of my own?' She stayed to comfort them, then went on in her search for a home that had never known sorrow. But wherever she turned, hovels and in palaces, she found one tale after another of sadness and misfortune. Ultimately, she became so involved in ministering to other people's grief that she forgot about her quest for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that it had in fact drive the sorrow out of her life. ~ Harold S. Kushner

A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife. ~ Sophocles

Magic swirls about us like an invisible fog of energy that can be tapped by those gifted enough, using a variety of techniques that center on layered spelling, mumbled incantations, and a burst of concentrated thought channeled through the index fingers. The technical name for this energy is "variable electro-gravitational mutable subatomic force," which doesn't mean anything at all
confused scientists just gave it an important-sounding name so as not to lose face. The usual term is "wizidrical energy," or simply "the crackle. ~ Jasper Fforde

Remember. Materialism is just another bullshit faith. Poetry is fucking alchemy. ~ R.M. Engelhardt

Apart from such visits, for the first time in her life Eliza was truly alone. In the beginning, unfamiliar sounds, nocturnal sounds, disturbed her, but as the days passed she came to know them: soft-pawed animals under the eaves, the ticking of the warming range, floorboards shivering in the cooling nights. And their were unexpected benefits to her solitary life: alone in the cottage, Eliza discovered that the characters from her fairy tales became bolder. She found fairies playing in the spiders' webs, insects whispering incantations on the windowsills, fire sprites spitting and hissing in the range. Sometimes in the afternoons, Eliza would sit on the rocking chair listening to them. And late at night, when they were all asleep, she would spin their stories into her own tales. ~ Kate Morton

Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it is only a manifestation of the patient's belief. ~ Hippocrates

How many invisible, abstract incantations ruled the world beyond the Southern Reach? ~ Jeff VanderMeer

14. Hateful Things: Someone has suddenly fallen ill and one summons the exorcist. Since he is not home, one has to send messages to look for him. After one has had a long fretful wait, the exorcist finally arrives, and with a sigh of relief one asks him to start his incantations. But perhaps he has been exorcising too many evil spirits recently; for hardly has he installed himself and begun praying when his voice becomes drowsy. Oh, how hateful! ~ Sei Shonagon

Virtually all the trends that matter are making a mockery of the industry's ritual incantations about the values and virtues of a free press in a free society. ~ Hodding Carter III

Although she never went to the synagogue ... Grandma [Lausch], all the same, burned a candle on the anniversary of Mr. Lausch's death, threw a lump of dough on the coals when she was baking, a kind of offering, had incantations over baby teeth and stunts against the evil eye. It was kitchen religion and had nothing to do with the G-d of the Creation who turned back the waters and exploded Gomorrah, but it was on the side of religion at that. ~ Saul Bellow