“The magic of the tongue is the most dangerous of all spells.”
Eugene Aram (1832), Book i, Chapter vii.
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Edward Bulwer-Lytton 31
English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician 1803–1873Related quotes

“The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed.”
On Fairy-Stories (1939)
Context: The story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator'. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed.
“But on her side the Colchian ceases not to foam with hellish poisons and to sprinkle all the silences of Lethe's bough: exerting her spells she constrains his reluctant eyes, exhausting all her Stygian power of hand and tongue.”
Contra Tartareis Colchis spumare venenis
cunctaque Lethaei quassare silentia rami
perstat et adverso luctantia lumina cantu
obruit atque omnem linguaque manuque fatigat
vim Stygiam.
Source: Argonautica, Book VIII, Lines 83–87

Miscellaneous Quotes On the Subjects of Magic and Magicians
Source: Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magi Part I: The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic By Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant), Translated by A. E. Waite, England, Rider & Company, England, 1896, Introduction p. 11