Quotes from Mircea Eliade

Îmi era peste putin?? s? cred c? Ileana va mai putea iubi vreodat?. M? îndoiesc dac? voi mai putea iubi eu...Dar viaÈ›a curge totuÈ™i înainte. ?i m? sperie întunericul în care s-a topit Ileana, viaÈ›a asta, necunoscut? mie, care o înghite...

IndiscreÈ›iile acestea strig?toare la cer pe care le fac uneori scriitorii prin c?rÈ›ile lor sunt, poate, un omagiu adus femeii pe care au iubit-o È™i pe care, de cele mai multe ori f?r? voia lor, au f?cut-o s? sufere. Cum s?-È™i cear? mai des?vârÈ™it iertare, cum s-o omagieze mai luminos È™i mai sincer decât scriind? Nu pot face altceva. Nu se pot ruga, de pild?, nu pot cânta...

Following Osiris' example, and with his help, the dead are able to transform themselves into "souls," that is, into perfectly integrated and hence indestructible spiritual beings. Murdered and dismembered, Osiris was "reconstituted" by Isis and reanimated by Horus. In this way he inaugurated a new mode of existence: from a powerless shade, he became a "person" who "knows," a duly initiated spiritual being.

Alchemy was not an embryonic chemistry; it was a discipline bound up with a different system of significances and pursuing a different end.

Nowhere in the history of religions do we find an adoration of any natural object in itself. A sacred thing, whatever its form and substance, is sacred because it reveals or shares in ultimate reality. Every religious object is always an "incarnation" of something: of the sacred.

Every eschatology returns to, continues and revalorizes the idea that the Creation, supremely the divine work, is alone capable of renewing and sanctifying human existence.

The myth, like the novel, signifies primarily an autonomous act of creation by the mind.

The myths that projected Jesus of Nazareth into a universe of archetypes and transcendent figures are as "true" as his acts and words; indeed, these myths confirm the strength and creativity of his original message.

But it would be risky to explain so widespread a myth by phenomena of which no geological traces have been found. The majority of the flood myths seem in some sense to form part of the cosmic rhythm: the old world, peopled by a fallen humanity, is submerged under the waters, and some time later a new world emerges from the aquatic "chaos.

A text from the Middle Kingdom admirably expresses the exaltation of Osiris as source and foundation of all creation: "Whether I live or die, I am Osiris; I enter in and reappear through you, I decay in you, I grow in you…. The gods are living in me, for I live and grow in the corn that sustains the Honoured Ones. I cover the earth; whether I live or die I am Barley. I am not destroyed. I have entered the Order…. I become Master of Order, I emerge in the Order.

To remain "awake," to be fully conscious, means: to be present to the world of the spirit.

The main function of myth is to determine the exemplar models of all ritual, and of all significant human acts.

Myth expresses in action and drama what metaphysics and theology define dialectically.

Myth is an autonomous act of creation by the mind: it is through that act of creation that revelation is brought about – not through the things or events it makes use of.

Sacredness is, above all, real.

The progressive de-sacralisation of modern man has altered the content of his spiritual life without breaking the matrices of his imagination: a quantity of mythological litter still lingers in the ill-controlled zones of the mind.

nimeni n-a încercat, înc?, s? treac? peste obsesia "înÈ›elegerii" vieÈ›ii ca s? colaboreze cu ea; cel puÈ›in, nimeni în Europa

In all probability, it is Ereshkigal who, softened by Dumuzi's tears, lightens his sad fate by deciding that he should spend only half the year in the netherworld and that his sister, Geshtinanna, should replace him during the other half

In western Europe they are distinctly poorer than the grandiose creations of the Upper Paleolithic. By contrast, in Southwest Asia, and especially in Palestine, the Mesolithic constitutes an axial period: it is the time of the domestication of the first animals and the beginnings of agriculture.

The way towards 'wisdom' or towards 'freedom' is the way towards your inner being. This is the simplest definition of metaphysics.

Man becomes aware of the Sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the Profane.

The primitive magician, the medicine man or shaman is not only a sick man, he is above all, a sick man who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself.

The crude product of nature, the object fashioned by the industry of man, acquire their reality, their identity, only to the extent of their participation in a transcendent reality.

Man makes himself, and he only makes himself completely in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world. The sacred is the prime obstacle to his freedom. He will become himself only when he is totally demysticized. He will not be truly free until he has killed the last god.