Best 472 quotes in «myth quotes» category

When Louise returned to the Aviary the others were playing the game of what character in fiction Peter Mir reminded them of. 'I think he's Mr Pickwick,' said Louise. 'Oh no! Never!' said Sefton. 'I think he's more like Prospero.' 'I think he's the Green Knight,' said Aleph. 'Come on, Moy, what do you think?' 'I think he's the Minotaur.' 'The Minotaur isn't a literary character, he's a mythical character,' Sefton objected. 'Oh really — !' 'What does Clement think?' said Aleph. 'I think he's Mephistopheles,' said Clement. 'Surely not, he's so nice!' said Louise.

When stupidity of today joins with the stupidity of yesterday it becomes a myth; my myth a stupidity glorifies itself.

When the builder saw that the work would not be finished, he flew into a giant’s rage. Once the Æsir realized for certain that they were facing a mountain giant, they no longer respected their oaths. They called upon Thor, who came immediately, and the next thing to happen was that the hammer Mjollnir was in the air. In this way Thor paid the builder his wages, but not the sun and the moon. Rather, Thor put an end to the giant’s life in Jotunheim. He struck the first blow in such a way that the giant’s skull broke into small pieces, and so Thor sent him down to Niflhel.

When we kissed, the skies had never appeared more heavenly, nor the seas a more brilliant shade of sapphire blue.

When the Æsir saw Odin flying, they placed their vats in the courtyard, and when Odin entered Asgard he spat the mead into the vats. It was such a close call, with Suttung almost catching him, that he blew some of the mead out of his rear. No one paid attention to this part, and whoever wanted it took it; we call this the bad poets’ portion.

When trying to interpret any myth, many people reflexively turn to the theories of people like James George Frazer, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Joseph Campbell. While each of those thinkers has developed an intriguing personal philosophy that uses various ancient mythologies as points of reference, their works are dubious guides to any one particular mythology. Their goal is not to understand any one mythology as deeply as possible on its own terms, but rather to identify supposed universal patterns within myth as such, which turns a blind eye toward the factors that make any given mythology unique. These thinkers, while fascinating in their own right, have little to no light to shed on how the Vikings themselves understood their own myths - which is, after all, the kind of interpretation that matters by far the most in a book of this sort.

When we place our immediate conflicts in the territory of an archetypal story we can better see the nature of our problems and find solutions that bring creative imagination to bear in the realm of hard facts and hardening dilemmas.

While the post-Civil War southerners were pushing as fast as they could into the New South, were grasping Yankee dollars with enthusiasm, they purified their motives in the well of Lost Causism. Politicians found it a bottomless source of bombast and ballots, preachers found it balm and solace to somewhat reluctant middle-class morals, writers found it a noble and salable theme.

Whether I'm a good wife doesn't have anything to do with what he was like.

Write for joy. It is the *only* reason to write. Whatever happens to your books afterward, just write for joy. Send your current one out when it's done and forget it, start another, and keep on writing for joy. Words I now live by. Welwyn Wilton Katz

With the release of the transcripts Nixon had allowed America into the ugliness of his mind - as of he wanted the world to participate in the despoliation of the myth of presidential behavior. The transcripts, Garment thought, were an invasion of the public's privacy, of its right not to know. That was the truly impeachable offense: letting everyone see.

You can’t expect to live in the world like the world’s your private myth.

Why are you here?" "To fetch the woman I cut from the veil of the rock." “Why did you cut?" "To send her spirit out, so that she would come to make the child, for me to teach to dance and sing and dream, to free the beasts within the rock to fill the world." “Have you found her?" "She is not here. There are only people horrible to see." “Where are your stories?" said the other. "I cannot tell them. My head is a cloud.

You make the rarest canvas, love

You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: 'Whoever denies it, let him produce a similar one.' Indeed, we shall produce a thousand similar, from the works of rhetoricians, eloquent speakers and valiant poets, which are more appropriately phrased and state the issues more succinctly. They convey the meaning better and their rhymed prose is in better meter. … By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: 'Produce something like it'‽

Your endurance is strongly influenced by your fundamental myth about the fighting.

Young scholars, learning their historical method from Gospel scholars, often treat it as self-evident that the more skeptical they are toward their sources, the more rigorous will be their historical method. It has to be said, over and over, that historical rigor does not consist in fundamental skepticism toward historical testimony but in fundamental trust along with testing by critical questioning…

Your money myth affects your gain and luck. In economics, illusion of money affects wealth.

American public policy is run on a myth.

All the great legends are Templates for human behavior. I would define a myth as a story that has survived.

Am I a myth? Am I a legend? Or am I a phenomenon?

A myth is a lie that conceals or reveals a truth. But if it reveals even a strand of history or truth, that's what gets my adrenaline going.

-Yo no aspiro a la fama ni me importa la eternidad. Me conformo con dejar buen recuerdo a los que me hayan conocido. Al fin y al cabo, nuestro valor es el de las cosas que dejemos al marcharnos.

All things fade and quickly turn to myth.

Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth...

Anxiety projection can and does occur - in myth, in music, in fiction, and in the doctor's office too. That doesn't make it the basis of everything.

As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.

As I continue to mature and navigate the world, there are so many myths that are dispelled for me.

As long as the family and the myth of the family ... have not been destroyed, women will still be oppressed.

But the myth of violent solutions as the ultimate solutions maintains itself in much of popular media.

Despite the myth that men are less committed, they are predisposed to desire marriage.

Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream.

Everything and everybody is sooner or later identified, defined, and put in perspective. The truth as always is simultaneously better and worse than what the popular myth-making has it.

Art is the Western myth, with which we both console ourselves and make ourselves.

But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.

Creation myths are not about the origins of the world at all, but about the origins of patriarchy which has claimed itself as the world

Fallen myths can instill venom.

Folklore is the boiled-down juice, or pot-likker, of human living.

Folklore is a collection of ridiculous notions held by other people, but not by you and me.

For myth is at the beginning of literature, and also at its end.

Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion.

Humans live through their myths and only endure their realities.

Follow the lead of your symptoms, for there’s usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul.

Each time, storytellers clothed the naked body of the myth in their own traditions, so that listeners could relate more easily to its deeper meaning.

Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy new things.

I always looked for a man to rescue me and bring me happiness. I bought into that myth, of course, and looked for my own Prince Charming.

I'd like to dispel the myth that when you put a wedding ring on a woman, her brain stops.

Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths.

I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth.

If you did not know at age five that the gods are made up beings and the myths made up stories, you are a fool.