Belief

"To solemnize this day the glorious sun Stays in his course and plays the alchemist, Turning with splendour of his precious eye The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold."

"O, he sits high in all the people's hearts; And that which would appear offence in us, His countenance, like richest alchemy, Will change to virtue and to worthiness."

"I had discovered, early in my researches, that their doctrine was no mere chemical fantasy, but a philosophy they applied to the world, to the elements, and to man himself."

"Transmutemini (inquit) transmute∣mini de lapidibus mortuis in Lapides vivos philosophicos."

"It is necessary to deprive matter of its qualities in order to draw out its soul. ... Copper is like a man; it has a soul and a body; ...the soul is the most subtile part, ... that is to say, the tinctorial spirit. The body is the ponderable, material, terrestrial thing, endowed with a shadow. ... After a series of suitable treatments copper becomes without shadow and better than gold. ...The elements ... grow and are transmuted, because it is their qualities, not their substances, which are contrary."

"You are an alchemist; make gold of that."

"Alchemists knew the coiled serpent as Uboros. ...it represented the highest goal of their quest: the harmonious union of opposites, especially the masculine and the feminine sides of the personality. The motto that usually accompanied it was "From the One to the One.""

"The starving chemist in his golden views Supremely blest."

"Although Alchemy has now fallen into contempt, and is even considered a thing of the past, the physician should not be influenced by such judgements. For many arts, such as astronomy, philosophy , and others, are also in disrepute. I am directing you, physicians, to alchemy for the preparation of the magnalia, for the production of the mysteria, for the preparation of the arcana, for the separation of the pure from the impure, to the end that you may obtain a flawless, pure remedy, God-given, perfect, and of certain efficacy, acheiving the highest degree of virtue and power. For it is not God's design that the remedies should exist for us, ready-made, boiled and salted, but that we should boil them ourselves, and it pleases Him that we boil them and learn in the process, that we train ourselves in this art and are not idle on earth, but labour in daily toil. For it is we who must pray for our daily bread, and if He grants it to us, it is only through our labour, our skill and preparation."

"They can picture love affairs of chemicals and stars, a romance of stones, or the fertility of fire. Strange, fertile correspondences the alchemists sensed in unlikely orders of being. Between men and planets, plants and gestures, words and weather."

"Alchemy is an erotic science, involved in buried aspects of reality, aimed at purifying and transforming all being and matter."

"If by fire Of sooty coal th' empiric alchymist Can turn, or holds it possible to turn, Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold."

"Everyone knows Newton as the great scientist. Few remember that he spent half his life muddling with alchemy, looking for the philosopher's stone. That was the pebble by the seashore he really wanted to find."

"Subtle. No egg but differs from a chicken more Than metals in themselves. Surly. That cannot be. The egg's ordained by nature to that end And is a chicken in potentia. Subtle. The same we say of lead and other metals, Which would be gold if they had time. ...for 'twere absurd To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant; something went before. There must be remote matter."

"[T]he growth of a plant, a tree, or an animal is an alchemical process going on in the alchemical laboratory of nature, and performed by the great Alchemist, the power of God acting in nature."

"And mark yon alchemist, with zodiac-spangled zone, Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom."

"What a lovely afternoon On a cloudbusting kind of day. We took our own 'Mystery Tour' And got completely lost somewhere up in the hills. And we came up on a bee-keeper, And he said "Did you know they can change it all?" They got alchemy. They turn the roses into gold They turn the lilac into honey They're making love for the peaches. And they'll do it, Do it for you."

"[E]ach author seems to have aimed to write treatises intelligible only to himself, and we greatly doubt his success in even this respect."

"Azoth is the essence of life! We alchemists have the ability to convert it into power! We can live forever! Your Azoth, Fiona, belongs to me! Come to me, Fiona. I will now extract the Azoth latent in you, in order to realize the everlasting life of Aureolus Belli."

"Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons that he had left them gold, buried somewhere in his vineyard; while they by digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots of the vines procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavours to make gold have brought many useful inventions to light."

"[E]very relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, ... and ... everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable."

"The Hindus do not pay particular attention to alchemy, but no nation is entirely free from it, and one nation has more bias for it than another, which must not be construed as proving intelligence or ignorance; for we find that many intelligent people are entirely given to alchemy, whilst ignorant people ridicule the art and its adepts."

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth."

"[A]n art without principles, the beginning of which was deceit, the progress delusion, and the end poverty."

"And the evil wish is most evil to the wisher."

"Wishers and woulders be small householders."

"On ne peut désirer ce qu'on ne connaît pas."

"Quoniam id fieri quod vis non potest Id velis quod possis."

"I've often wished that I had clear, For life, six hundred pounds a year, A handsome house to lodge a friend, A river at my garden's end, A terrace walk, and half a rood Of land, set out to plant a wood."

"If I live to grow old, as I find I go down, Let this be my fate in a country town; May I have a warm house, with a stone at my gate, And a cleanly young girl to rub my bald pate. May I govern my passions with an absolute sway, Grow wiser and better as my strength wears away, Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay."

"Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious and free, First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea."

"Vous l'avez voulu, vous l'avez voulu, George Dandin, vous l'avez voulu."

"I wish I knew the good of wishing."

"With all thy sober charms possest, Whose wishes never learnt to stray."

"Little I ask; my wants are few; I only wish a hut of stone (A very plain brown stone will do), That I may call my own; And close at hand is such a one In yonder street that fronts the sun."

"Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long."

"Was man in der Jugend wünscht, hat man im Alter die Fülle."

"O, that I were where I would be, Then would I be where I am not; For where I am I would not be, And where I would be I can not."

""Man wants but little here below Nor wants that little long," 'Tis not with me exactly so; But 'tis so in the song. My wants are many, and, if told, Would muster many a score; And were each wish a mint of gold, I still should long for more."

"What folly can be ranker. Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines."

"Man wants but little, nor that little long; How soon must he resign his very dust, Which frugal nature lent him for an hour!"

"He calls his wish, it comes; he sends it back, And says he called another; that arrives, Meets the same welcome; yet he still calls on; Till one calls him, who varies not his call, But holds him fast, in chains of darkness bound, Till Nature dies, and judgment sets him free; A freedom far less welcome than this chain."

"Wishing, of all employments is the worst."

"What most we wish, with ease we fancy near."

"Jeannie: Your wish is my command, Master."

"Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek."

"Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought: I stay too long by thee, I weary thee."

"Henry: There ain't no such thing as magic, is there?"

"One does not attain everything he wishes for. / Winds blow counter to what the ships desire."

"You pursue, I fly; you fly, I pursue; such is my humor. What you wish, Dondymus, I do not wish, what you do not wish, I do."