Quotes & Sayings About Sorcery

Don't laugh at the voice of the stars. They are far away, their rays are light and pale, and we can barely see their sleeping shadows, but their sorcery is stern and dark. — Leonid Andreyev

A name can't begin to encompass the sum of all her parts. But that's the magic of names, isn't it? That the complex, contradictory individuals we are can be called up complete and whole in another mind through the simple sorcery of a name. — Charles De Lint

Smash cut to a smoke-bombed quarantine,
Guards like 'all signs correlate with sorcery',
It's more a dormant cell of valor as awoken by the smell of sordid power and defecting shortly after,
Fist bump dry land, brackish, cat nap 15, back to swiss-cheese the flagship,
Uh, blue in the menacing grip of a day for which you're manifestly unfit. — Aesop Rock

For they were alone, and he was one of the seven persons in the world who knew the Archmage's name. The others were the Master Namer of Roke; and Ogion the Silent, the wizard of Re Albi, who long ago on the mountain of Gont had given Ged that name; and the White Lady of Gont, Tenar of the Ring; and a village wizard in Iffish called Vetch; and in Iffish again, a house-carpenter's wife, mother of three girls, ignorant of all sorcery but wise in other things, who was called Yarrow; and finally, on the other side of Earthsea, in the farthest west, two dragons: Orm Embar and Kalessin. — Ursula K. Le Guin

A tragi-comedy, telling of an impoverished minister's desperate attempts to gain money by any means, beginning with a mercenary marriage and ending with sorcery. I should think it might be received very well. I believe I shall call it, ' Tis Pity She's a Corpse. — Susanna Clarke

Sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it. — George R R Martin

Sorcery's impressive enough, but it's their fucking attitude that makes them such a pain. — Scott Lynch

Earth tries to work sorcery on us, saying Tomorrow, Tomorrow, but we outwit that spell by enjoying this now. — Rumi

Sorcery was a sword without a hilt. There is no sfe way to grasp it. — George R R Martin

The Chamber is only a room, though a magical one, and you will enter it when the time comes. Duke Roger is only a man, for all he wields sorcery. He can be met and defeated. But you, my daughter - learn to love. You have been given a hard road to walk. Love will ease it. Much depends on you, Alanna of Trebond. Do not fail me! - The Goddess — Tamora Pierce

I think that the ideal space must contain elements of magic, serenity, sorcery and mystery. — Luis Barragan

His eyes, usually as black and hard as obsidian were softer now, with the sheen of a crow's wing in sunlight. "You love me anyway," she teased.
"That's true," he said softly.
"Your weakness," she replied in equally quiet tones.
"No. My strength." They made love, this time without the power of their combined Gifts flowing hot between them, yet Martise would argue with anyone that its absence made no difference. There was sorcery aplenty in loving the one you held most dear. — Grace Draven

Life is magic.
I knew, without having to ask, what she meant. Life was not the magic of spells or enchantments or sorcery; or, it was, but that was not the point. Life created magic as an accidental by-product, it wasn't, definite article, absolute statement, A=B, magic. Life was magic in a more mundane sense of the word; the act of living being magic all of its own.
This was something we instinctively understood - it simply hadn't occurred to us that it might need explaining. — Kate Griffin

Suppose it really was a school for magic. Was it any good? What if he'd stumbled into some third-tier magic college by accident? He had to think practically. He didn't want to be committing himself to some community college of sorcery when he could have Magic Harvard or whatever. "Don't — Lev Grossman

The result of the scientific work we have been considering was that the outlook of educated men was completely transformed. At the beginning of the century, Sir Thomas Browne took part in trials for witchcraft; at the end, such a thing would have been impossible. In Shakespeare's time, comets were still portents; after the publication of Newton's Principia in 1687, it was known that he and Halley had calculated the orbits of certain comets, and that they were as obedient as the planets to the law of gravitation. The reign of law had established its hold on men's imaginations, making such things as magic and sorcery incredible. In 1700 the mental outlook of educated men was completely modern; in 1600, except among a very few, it was still largely medieval. — Bertrand Russell

The albino found himself brooding upon the nature of all unholy bargains, of his own dependency upon the hellsword Stormbringer, of his willingness to summon supernatural aid without thought of any spiritual consequences to himself and, perhaps most significant, of his unwillingness to find a way to cure himself of the occult's seductive attraction; for there was a part of his strange brain that was curious to follow its own fate; to learn whatever disastrous conclusion lay in store for it - it needed to know the end of the saga: the value, perhaps, of its torment. — Michael Moorcock

My entire view of the world has changed," he muttered as he went to the sink and began to scrub at the plates. "Sorcery, entities from the Outside, fish-men in my family tree, I can accept. Mr. Farr and Mr. Durfree as lovers crosses the line. — Jordan L. Hawk

I stood in line in a blizzard for six days to discover the sorcery of the smartphone. — Rick Riordan

Your faith is admirable, Pelleas. But I know nothing of sorcery. As it is, I have not been able to discover how the spell may be broken or how Merlin may be released from it. — Stephen R. Lawhead

People who have power, who think negatively of others and seek to injure them, are practicing a kind of voodoo, a lower sorcery. — Frederick Lenz

If in any quest for magic, in any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human spirit. — Rod Serling

I want to talk about faith. It's not about whether something is true, or-or-or based in fact or reality or the laws of physics or nature or even basic common sense. It's about whether or not we're dumb enough to believe in it that matters. Oh, folks, who the hell am I to say that there is no God? Who am I? Or to say that anybody's belief in the church doesn't make their life better? Maybe it does. Or that this man, Dr. Jinx - who am I to say that he can't cure diseases with his sorcery? I don't know. I say maybe he can. And I believe that maybe he can.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we believe... if we just believe... then we can do anything!

Oh, yeah, ladies and gentlemen. I feel it now! Do you feel it? Do you feel the spirit? Do you feel the invisible things around you that don't really exist? Oh, it doesn't matter! — Dennis Reynolds

The warmth in his eyes flared to heat and he captured her hand in both of his, bending over it to hold his lips against the back a long moment. He did not exactly kiss it so much as breathe her in. She feared her hand smelled of bacon, but he didn't seem to care. — Gail Dayton

My name is Arianna Morganna Brittany DuLac
you can imagine why I went by the name Ryan. — Priya Ardis

She gathered herself up- rather like collecting her skirts before mountibg a carriage — Gail Dayton

Don't let western authors and evangelists fool you, Europeans were NOT killing witches; they were killing WOMEN. If the criminal act was allegedly that of sorcery/witchery, we would have seen similar accounts and charges against men to justify these narratives! They were indeed killing the WOMEN. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

I've stolen books. They're the only thing worth taking that don't belong to you. — Sully Tarnish

The teaching of the church, theoretically astute, is a lie in practice and a compound of vulgar superstitions and sorcery. — Leo Tolstoy

Girl of Emerald, no man can tame. Burn down the world, consumed by flames. — Betsy Schow

At the time, sword and sorcery stories were quite popular. There were female warriors waving swords around as well, but the genre is populated entirely with people who have absolutely no responsibility to anyone, so I knew my story would have to be completely different from any of these. — Hayao Miyazaki

Did you recently turn into a jerk or have you been one since birth? — Priya Ardis

Grand," I said. "Just grand. I get myself into the army, stand up in battles I have no business in, get nailed in the back by sorcery, accept an impossible assignment to be carried out in the middle of it all, and then, just to top things off, I have to go have a mystical fucking experience. This is just great. — Steven Brust

Dragons were notoriously finicky about whom they ate, and thought it the height of bad manners to be kept waiting by their selected fare. — Sully Tarnish

To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament, and the thing itself is a Truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, by either example seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits. — William Blackstone

That was the first time he'd seen Baltsaros sacrifice someone. The next time it had happened, it had taken a different form; the captain had pulled the young man's heart from his body to take a bite of it, but the result had been the same: Tom was fucked into oblivion. Initially, Tom had begun to find himself getting hard at the mere suggestion of a "hunt" as Baltsaros called it, but over time he'd started to grow concerned about the captain's state of mind. It was an obsession, and a deeply disturbing one at that. Tom didn't believe in sorcery, but the way that the blood renewed Baltsaros was something that worried him. It spoke of a dark power that Tom had no wish to be part of. — Bey Deckard

Where lies the line between sorcery and science? It is only a matter of terminology, my friend. — Alan Dean Foster

How do women all know what to do with babies? It's like they have their own special kind of sorcery. — Rae Carson

Pearl spent the passing days buried so deep in the musty, dusty sorcery tomes that sometimes when she emerged, she spoke in archaic english. "Hast thou a light?" she'd asked him this afternoon when her study room had grown dark with gathering clouds. — Gail Dayton

The core practice of magic is: The execution of a willed intent to create change in the material world, which either defies, hastens or purifies the consequences of natural cause and effect. — Zeena Schreck

While his brain lay slowly dying, Bevan felt his body come back to life. — Stephanie Bedwell-Grime

Do I look like I want to be involved in your teen love saga? Ask someone who cares. — Priya Ardis

To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery. — Charles Baudelaire

19When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. — Anonymous

I believe the personal is the collective. One of the ironies of writing memoir is in using the "I" it becomes an alchemical "we." This is the sorcery of literature. — Terry Tempest Williams

Books -lighthouses erected in the great sea of time -books, the precious depositories of the thoughts and creations of genius -books, by whose sorcery times past become time present, and the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes, -these were to visit the firesides of the humble and lavish the treasures of the intellect upon the poor. — Edwin Percy Whipple

Those who practice lower sorcery hurt themselves the most because they interact with negative thoughts and apply power to them; they devastate their own consciousness and their own lives. — Frederick Lenz

Make no mistake, little human. You are under my protection now, and I protect what is mine. — Danielle Monsch

You speak of Sorcery. It so happens that in the investigations leading first to my Conjectures concerning Light and later to my System of the World, I fell upon a pretty Proof that Wicked Spirits enjoy no essential Existence, being but Desires of the Mind. — James K. Morrow

The generative function is strictly nothing but an animal one, and can never be anything else. True spirituality demands its utter extirpation; and while its proper exercise for the continuation of the human race, in the semi-animal stage of its evolution, may not be considered sinful, its misuse, in any way, is fraught with the most terrible consequences physically, psychically and spiritually; and the forces connected with it are used for abnormal purposes only in the foulest practices of sorcery, the inevitable result of which is moral death - the annihilation of the individuality. — James Morgan Pryse

My heart might very well beat itself from my chest," she whispered, "and 'tis difficult to breathe."
"How odd." Passion thickened his voice. "I seem to be suffering the same symptoms. Does anything else plague you?"
"A terrible weakness," she whispered shakily. "If you let me go, I am not entirely certain I shall be able to stand."
He buried his face in her neck. "Then I shall never let you go. — Jo Grafford

The spirit of the world, the great calm presence of the creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

But what are pity, conscience, or fear To the brazen pair, compared With the living sorcery Of their hot embraces? — Boris Pasternak

Manipulation, fueled with good intent, can be a blessing. But when used wickedly, it is the beginning of a magician's karmic calamity. — T.F. Hodge

Ferocity is a trait highly regarded amongst us. — Stefan Mroczkowski

Sometimes, reality is the illusion, and the truth only visible where our eyes can't see.
- Lady Lalaigne — Jeanine Henning

Those who seek only the rapture of divine union and quiescence of the mystic state are likewise not on our path. Such navel gazers lose the script for why they are even incarnated in the first place. To the sorcerer there is not much point in moments of primordial awareness if it does not carry over into the living levels of consciousness; no purpose to receiving the uncreated and clear light, if one cannot reflect it outward through world and deed; and no purpose in being a sovereign if you cannot leave the kingdom better than you found it. — Jason G. Miller

An axiom of sorcery: If you come to know yourself
no one else can know you — Rodney Hall

He who confesses magic or sorcery shall do penance for the time of murder, and shall be treated in the same manner as he who convicts himself of this sin. — Saint Basil

The only thing more unpredictable than magic is language. — Sully Tarnish

In the meantime, Lillian was looking speculatively at the mural. Kami saw her lift her hand. With sorcery, the mural could be done in ten minutes.

"I see you, Linnaea," Jon called over his shoulder. "Don't even think it. I have eyes in the back of my head, and all my eyes have artistic vision."

" 'Linnaea' is not a name," grumbled Lillian, but she lowered her hand.

"It is a name," said Jon. "I looked it up. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Ellysetta Baristani." Belliard's voice caused her to stop and turn back around. "Even should you clothe yourself in rags and dirt, you would bring honor to the Fey. — C.L. Wilson

When a mortal man breaks a people, it is always blamed on the gods. — S.M. White

Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present. Underneath all civilization, ancient or modern, moved and still moves a sea of magic, superstition and sorcery. Perhaps they will remain when the works of our reason have passed away. — Will Durant

There are ignorant priests and ignorant people, who are all too ready to cry sorcery if a woman is only a little wiser than they are! — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I read H.P. Lovecraft. I also like Sword and Sorcery stuff, Arthurian legend. — Bruce Boxleitner

Blood answers blood, especially that given for the sake of others. — Helen C. Johannes

Ellysetta Baristani is my shei'tani." His eyes found hers. "My truemate." A murmur of voices rippled through the crowd.
"Please tell the court what a truemate is."
"A truemate is the person who holds the other half of a Fey's soul." His gaze never left hers, and Ellie felt the magic of his voice wrapping her in imperceptible weaves of longing. "It is the most sacred bond known to any Fey, more sacred than that between a king and his subjects, more sacred even than that between a mother and a child. — C.L. Wilson

Luckily for you," he said, "you shed hairpins the way Hansel and Gretel shed crumbs. I followed your trail." He pressed a half dozen hairpins into the palm of my left hand. "Now let us return to light, safety, and society. — Caroline Stevermer

I am home, you soggy-faced, entitled little prick, he barely stopped himself saying. You think it took northern sorcery to make me the way I am now? You think it took a war? Those things were tonic compared to what came before. Desperation and deception were waiting for me at the nursery door, took me by either hand as I walked out into my youth, have been my constant companions since. — Richard K. Morgan

Sheer male interest filled his gaze which was entirely focused on her. She'd never before felt so female, so utterly desirable, so wanton. — Jo Grafford

The battle against good and evil is raging now! Look at your television programming and movie advertisements presenting the occult ... the demonic ... the satanic ... the practice of witchcraft and sorcery in popular books ... the open hostility toward Christianity and the revival of anti-Semitism. The fight is on for the hearts and minds of our children in ours homes, our schools, our universities, and our society. — John Hagee

Lord help her, but she was instantly drawn to his scent - a mixture of smoke and salt and mystery - as well as his strength. The pulse of his heart, the hum of blood through his veins, the aura of power and danger surrounding him. — Jo Grafford

It's been a long time since I've written old-fashioned sword and sorcery; I'm hoping it's like riding a bicycle. — Lynn Abbey

Science, my dears, is the systematic dissection of nature, to reduce it to working parts that more or less obey universal laws. Sorcery moves in the opposite direction. It doesn't rend, it repairs. It is synthesis rather than analysis. It builds anew rather than revealing the old. In the hands of someone truly skilled, ... it is Art. — Gregory Maguire

Illusions may flatter us, confuse us, or betray us, Drakkonwehr. Or they may be images we cling to when the truth is too difficult to face. — Helen C. Johannes

War! When I but think of this word, I feel bewildered, as though they were speaking to me of sorcery, of the Inquisition, of a distant, finished, abominable, monstrous, unnatural thing. When they speak to us of cannibals, we smile proudly, as we proclaim our superiority to these savages. Who are the real savages? Those who struggle in order to eat those whom they vanquish, or those who struggle merely to kill? — Guy De Maupassant

Image is sorcery. — Jorge Luis Borges

Labyrinths were old sorcery, and subtle: good for recharging one's magical resources when they were running low. — Lev Grossman

You pathetic humans! It escapes me how you endure any trial long enough even to breed, yet here you are. And why do your kind persist at all? Because every now and then - once a century, perhaps - ONE of you understands this: Death is what you accept only when you have spent all that you are - to the very last drop of your sweat and blood - in order to save what you love. That, son of Koronolan, is what a hero, a true warrior, would do. — Helen C. Johannes

Cade grabbed my hand and pressed it against his chest. You are right here forever, and no magic tricks or sorcery can pry you from my heart. — Tess Oliver

They have no gods. They work magic, and think they are gods themselves. But they are not. And when they die, they (...) become dust and bone, and their ghosts whine on the wind a little while till the wind blows them away. They do not have immortal souls. — Ursula K. Le Guin

SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death. — Ambrose Bierce

Well, here were the ugly facts. She had no mad-ninja-skillz to rely on and her family didn't know where she was. She didn't know where she was. The only way she was leaving was if this creature allowed it. — Danielle Monsch

Follow your heart, Ithilnin," Albirich repeated. "Time is precious. Don't waste it living someone else's life. — Jess C. Scott

In alarming proportions the following words have disappeared from architectural publications: beauty, inspiration, magic, sorcery, enchantment, and also serenity, mystery, silence, privacy, astonishment. All of these have found a loving home in my soul. — Luis Barragan

The mask possesses equal levels of sorcery and functionality. It has been both handed down from ancient times with darkness and sent back from the future with light. — Haruki Murakami

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

Seven Cities was an ancient civilization, steeped in the power of antiquity, where Ascendants once walked on every trader track, every footpath, every lost road between forgotten places. It was said the sands hoarded power within their sussurating currents, that every stone had soaked up sorcery like blood, and that beneath every city lay the ruins of countless other cities, older cities, cities that went back to the First Empire itself. It was said each city rose on the backs of ghosts, the substance of spirits thick like layers of crushed bone; that each city forever wept beneath the streets, forever laughed, shouted, hawked wares and bartered and prayed and drew first breaths that brought life and the last breaths that announced death. Beneath the streets there were dreams, wisdom, foolishness, fears, rage, grief, lust and love and bitter hatred. — Steven Erikson

The Aztecs and the Elizabethans looked into their mirrors to discern danger. Today those who peer into the future want only relief from anxiety. Unable to face the prospect that the cycles of war will continue, they are desperate to find a pattern of improvement in history. It is only natural that believers in reason, lacking any deeper faith and too feeble to tolerate doubt, should turn to the sorcery of numbers. Happily there are some who are ready to assist them. Just as the Elizabethan magus transcribed tables shown to him by angels, the modern scientific scryer deciphers numerical auguries of angels hidden in ourselves. — John N. Gray

All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. — Fred Brooks

Sorcery: the systematic cultivation of enhanced consciousness or non-ordinary awareness & its deployment in the world of deeds & objects to bring about desired results. — Hakim Bey

As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. — Ambrose Bierce

Yes, they manage to sound very reasonable to themselves as they talk of deterring others from crime; but the act of putting a man in jail remains essentially the act of trying to wish that man out of existence. From the moment of arrest one begins to feel against one's flesh the operation of this crude attempt at sorcery. — Barbara Deming

What foul sorcery is this?" she said. "Pretty standard foul sorcery; nothing special." "Okay," she said. "Just checking. — Steven Brust

How many did she kill?"
"Dozens, my Lord, until her sword was dull with the blood of her enemies."
Reign stroked the edge of the dagger with his forefinger until a drop of blood was drawn. The blood absorbed into the blade. "Only that? I will see her bathed in blood before me. — Danielle Monsch

I don't put much stock in powers that people have to hurt others, in sorcery and all this nonsense. There are murders and there are dictators. That is just a part of life. The intelligent use of power in yoga can assist you avoiding that side of humanity. — Frederick Lenz

He got up and walked out, so I missed seeing the powerful sorcerer doing his powerful sorcery, which would have involved him closing his eyes and then, I don't know, maybe taking a deep breath or something. — Steven Brust

The discipline of programming is most like sorcery. Both use precise language to instruct inanimate objects to do our bidding. Small mistakes in programs or spells can lead to completely unforseen behavior: e.g., see the story, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Neither study is easy: " ... her [Galinda's] early appetite for sorcery had waned once she'd heard what a grind it was to learn spells and, worse, to understand them." from the book "Wicked" by G. Maguire. — Richard E. Pattis

If a dream can tell the future it can also thwart that future. For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come. He is bound to no one that the world unfold just so upon its course and those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream? — Cormac McCarthy