It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.
Interpretation
Understanding something does not diminish its wonder or beauty.
This quote by Terry Pratchett suggests that the magical elements of life do not lose their significance simply because we gain knowledge about their workings. It emphasizes that the awe and charm in life, art, or nature can coexist with a rational understanding, encouraging us to appreciate both the magic and the science behind our experiences.
In practice
In a speech about the wonders of science educating students about the beauty of nature.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet.
The things that have acquired unity are these: Heaven by unity has become clear; Earth by unity has become steady; The Spirit by unity has become spiritual; The Valley by unity has become full; All things by unity have come into existence.
The influence (for good or ill) of Plato's work is immeasurable. Western thought, one might say, has been Platonic or anti-Platonic, but hardly ever non-Platonic.
Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife - what's the answer to that?
The world is being created and destroyed in this very moment. Whoever you met will reappear, whoever you lost will return. Donβt betray the grace that was bestowed on you. Understand what is going on inside you and you will understand what is going on inside everyone else. Donβt imagine that I came to bring peace. I came with a sword.
You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?
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