Top 40 Harry Houdini Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “My Brain is the key that sets me free.”

— Harry Houdini

Featured in: Quotes About the Brain

2. “Never tell the auidience how good you are, they will soon find out for themselves.”

— Harry Houdini

3. “Look at this life – all mystery and magic.”

— Harry Houdini

4. “Anyone who believes in magic is a fool.”

— Harry Houdini

5. “An old trick well done is far better than a new trick with no effect.”

— Harry Houdini

6. “No prison can hold me; no hand or leg irons or steel locks can shackle me. No ropes or chains can keep me from my freedom.”

— Harry Houdini

7. “The greatest escape I ever made was when I left Appleton, Wisconsin.”

— Harry Houdini

8. “What the eyes sees, the ear hears, and the mind belives.”

— Harry Houdini

9. “Keep up your enthusiasm! There is nothing more contagious than exuberant enthusiasm.”

— Harry Houdini

10. “I always have on my mind the thought that next year I must do something greater, something more wonderful.”

— Harry Houdini

11. “Some say I do it this way, others say I do it that way, but I say I do it the other way.”

— Harry Houdini

12. “No performer should attempt to bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth.”

— Harry Houdini

13. “Never try to fool children, they expect nothing, and therefore see everything...”

— Harry Houdini

14. “I’m tired of fighting.”

— Harry Houdini

15. “I do not believe that ghosts or spirits exist.”

— Harry Houdini

16. “The secret of showmanship consists not of what you really do, but what the mystery-loving public thinks you do.”

— Harry Houdini

17. “A magician is only an actor – an actor pretending to be a magician.”

— Harry Houdini

18. “Magic is the sole science not accepted by scientists, because they can’t understand it.”

— Harry Houdini

19. “My chief task has been to conquer fear. The public sees only the thrill of the accomplished trick; they have no conception of the tortuous preliminary self-training that was necessary to conquer fear.”

— Harry Houdini

20. “Disloyalty in trusted servants is one of the most disheartening things that can happen to a public performer.”

— Harry Houdini

21. “They do tricks even I can’t figure out.”

— Harry Houdini

22. “The pickpocket is usually very well dressed and of prepossessing appearance.”

— Harry Houdini

23. “In all feats of fire-eating it should be noted that the head is thrown well back, so that the flame may pass out of the open mouth instead of up into the roof, as it would if the head were held naturally.”

— Harry Houdini

24. “The eating of burning brimstone is an entirely fake performance.”

— Harry Houdini

25. “My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion...”

— Harry Houdini

26. “I’m tired of fighting, Dash. I guess this thing is going to get me.”

— Harry Houdini

27. “Rosabelle – answer – tell – pray, answer – look – tell – answer, answer – tell.”

— Harry Houdini

28. “I am not an irretrievable skeptic. I am not hopelessly prejudiced. I am perfectly willing to believe, and my mind is wide open; but I have, as yet, to be convinced. I am perfectly willing, but the evidence must be sane and conclusive.”

— Harry Houdini

29. “I must fling myself down and writhe; I must strive with every piece of force I possess; I bruise and batter myself against the floor, the walls; I strain and sob and exhaust myself, and begin again, and exhaust myself again; but do I feel pain? Never. How can I feel pain? There is no place for it.”

— Harry Houdini

30. “My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business.”

— Harry Houdini

31. “Only one man ever betrayed my confidence, and that only in a minor matter.”

— Harry Houdini

32. “Fire has always been and, seemingly, will always remain, the most terrible of the elements.”

— Harry Houdini

33. “It is needless to say that women make the most patient as well as the most dangerous pickpockets.”

— Harry Houdini

34. “But it must not be thought that I say this out of personal experience: for in the many years that I have been before the public my secret methods have been steadily shielded by the strict integrity of my assistants, most of whom have been with me for years.”

— Harry Houdini

35. “The great trouble with magicians is the fact that they believe when they have bought a certain trick or piece of apparatus, and know the method of procedure, that they are full-fledged mystifiers.”

— Harry Houdini

36. “Flames from the lips may be produced by holding in the mouth a sponge saturated with the purest gasoline.”

— Harry Houdini

37. “Another method of eating burning coals employs small balls of burned cotton in a dish of burning alcohol.”

— Harry Houdini

38. “But then, so far as I know, I am the only performer who ever pledged his assistants to secrecy, honor and allegiance under a notarial oath.”

— Harry Houdini

39. “Pickpockets either work alone or in pairs, or what is called a mob.”

— Harry Houdini

40. “I make the most money, I think, in Russia and Paris, for the people of those countries are so willing to be amused, so eager to see something new and out of the ordinary.”

— Harry Houdini

41. “To cause the face to appear in a mass of flame make use of the following: mix together thoroughly petroleum, lard, mutton tallow and quick lime. Distill this over a charcoal fire, and the liquid which results can be burned on the face without harm.”

— Harry Houdini

42. “Eating coals of fire has always been one of the sensational feats of the Fire Kings, as it is quite generally known that charcoal burns with an extremely intense heat.”

— Harry Houdini

43. “How the early priests came into possession of these secrets does not appear, and if there were ever any records of this kind the Church would hardly allow them to become public.”

— Harry Houdini

44. “Sir Arthur, I have devoted a lot of time and thought to this illusion... I won’t tell you how it was done, but I can assure you it was pure trickery. I did it by perfectly normal means. I devised it to show you what can be done along these lines. Now, I beg of you, Sir Arthur, do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you see are necessarily “supernatural,” or the work of “spirits,” just because you cannot explain them...”

— Harry Houdini

45. “It is still an open question, however, as to what extent exposure really injures a performer.”

— Harry Houdini

46. “The great day of the Fire-eater – or, should I say, the day of the great Fire-eater – has passed.”

— Harry Houdini

47. “I think that in a year I may retire. I cannot take my money with me when I die and I wish to enjoy it, with my family, while I live. I should prefer living in Germany to any other country, though I am an American, and am loyal to my country.”

— Harry Houdini