The faith of scientists in the power and truth of mathematics is so implicit that their work has gradually become less and less observation, and more and more calculation.... But the facts which are accepted by virtue of these tests are not actually observed at all.

Magic, then, is not a method, but a language; it is part and parcel of that greater phenomenon, ritual, which is the language of religion. Ritual is a symbolic transformation of experiences that no other medium can adequately express.

The development of beings with minds is probably the highest individuation the world has ever known, and its prehistory is the history of life on earth.

Language is, without a doubt, the most momentous and at the same time the most mysterious product of the human mind.

The historian does not locate known facts in a hypothetical, general pattern of processes; his aim is to link fact to fact, one unique knowable event to another individual one that begot it.

It is significant that people who refuse to tell their children fairytales do not fear that the children will believe in princes and princesses, but that they will believe in witches and bogeys.

If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world of new questions.