Quotes from Mircea Eliade

One is devoured by Time, not because one lives in Time, but because one believes in its reality and therefore forgets or despises eternity.

Time turns into pleroma by the very fact of the incarnation of the divine Word: but this fact itself transfigures history.

All culture is a "fall" into history...

ÎncercaÈ›i s? nu v? gândiÈ›i la voi. S? v? transformaÈ›i viaÈ›a în potire în care s? se adune alt? via??, mai plin?, mai uman?. Când aveÈ›i de f?cut un lucru, gândiÈ›i-v? la ceea ce trebuie f?cut, nu la cine îl face. IgnoraÈ›i cu furie fructul actelor voastre. S? nu v? intereseze dac? un lucru e apreciat, e recompensat, e premiat. TreceÈ›i peste el îndat? ce l-aÈ›i f?cut.

Es wäre entsetzlich, glauben zu müssen, daß in diesem ganzen so harmonishen, vollkommenen und sich selbst immer gleichbleibenden Kosmos nur die menschliche Existenz ein Speil des Zufalls und nur das Schicksal des Menschen völlig sinnlos sei.

On the other hand, fire itself was looked upon as the result (the progeny) of a sexual union: it was born as a result of the to-and-fro motion (compared to copulation) of a stick (representing the male organ), in a notch made in a piece of wood (female organ; cf. Rig Veda III.......)

Melancholy, a major instrument of cognition, the only one capable of disturbing and shaking the imperialistic security of theology...

The formation of the embryo and childbirth repeat the primeval fact of the birth of humanity, looked upon as an emergence from the deepest chtonian cavern-matrix.

What if all those powers that once upon a time terrified the mind and soul of man, and in which almost no one in our day believes, still continue their magic, unbeknown to anyone, in a world hermetically sealed?

One becomes oneself when one learns one's history.

Any religion is a book sealed with seven seals for the one who doesn't understand that witnesses to the beliefs and thoughts of ancient man are to be found always in nature. The fall of man into history brought with it the participation of nature in history.

Thut-mose III opened the series of military campaigns in Asia by an expedition against the former fortified places of the Hyksos. The feeling of insecurity produced by the foreign occupation was long in disappearing. It was in order to make Egypt invulnerable to external aggression that Thut-mose III proceeded to a series of conquests that ended in the Empire.

To be human is to seek for meaning…

Omul nou a fost întâi realizat de o elit?, de o minoritate – È™i apoi a fost consumat, imitat de cei mulÈ›i

It is beyond doubt that this gray reality, this everyday life of ours, is a camouflage for something else.

For primitives as for the man of all pre modern societies, the sacred is equivalent to a power, and, in the last analysis, to reality. The polarity sacred – profane is often expressed as a opposition between real The Sacred and the Profane and unreal or pseudoreal. Thus it is easy to understand that religious man deeply desires to be, to participate in reality, to be saturated with power.

A century after the victory at Megiddo the massive presence of "Asiatics" is documented everywhere, even in the administration and the royal residences.

For primitives as for the man of all premodern societies, the sacred is equivalent to a power, and to reality. The polarity sacred – profane is often expressed as an opposition between real The Sacred and the Profane and unreal or pseudoreal. Thus it is easy to understand that religious man deeply desires to be, to participate in reality, to be saturated with power.

Thus, for example, all the aspects of the culture of Jericho would deserve a religious commentary. It is perhaps the most ancient city on earth (ca. 6850, 6770 B.C.),31 though it is ignorant of ceramics. However, the fortifications, the massive tower, the large public edifices—at least one of which seems to have been built for ritual ceremonies—denote a social integration and an economic organization that are the prelude to the future city-states of Mesopotamia.

E foarte greu s? ai ceva cu adev?rat, s?-l capeÈ›i sau s?-l cucereÈ™ti. Mai mult ne închipuim c? posed?m decât posed?m.

El hombre religioso siente la necesidad de sumergirse periódicamente en ese tiempo sagrado e indestructible. Para él, es el tiempo sagrado lo que hace posible el otro tiempo ordinario, la duración profana en la cual se desarrolla toda existencia humana.

The term initiation in the most general sense denotes a body of rites and oral teachings whose purpose is to produce a decisive alteration in the religious and social status of the person to be initiated.

Eu le accept s? m? îmbog??easc?, dar nu le las s? m? surpe. Socotesc c? cel care ÅŸtie s? se desfate în amintiri ÅŸi poate, totuÅŸi, s? le struneasc? e un adevarat b?rbat.

A sanctuary (ca. 6200 B.C.) contained four men's skulls deposited under the bulls' heads fastened to the walls. One wall is decorated with paintings depicting vultures with anthropomorphic legs attacking a decapitated man. This must certainly represent an important mythico-ritual complex, the meaning of which unfortunately escapes us.