Quotes About Myth

We've been brought up to think of the Victorians as prudes, horrified by a glimpse of table leg, but that myth was constructed in the 1920s out of whole cloth, to give their rebellious children an excuse to point and say, We invented sex! The reality is stranger: the Victorians were licentious in the extreme behind closed doors, only denying everything in public in the pursuit of probity.

A snake was never called by its name at night, because it would hear. It was called a string.

The potency of myth is that it allows us to make sense of mayhem and violent death. It gives a justification to what is often nothing more than gross human cruelty and stupidity. It allows us to believe we have achieved our place in human society because of a long chain of heroic endeavors, rather than accept the sad reality that we stumble along a dimly lit corridor of disasters. It disguises our powerlessness.

All you have to do is work hard, obey the rules, and believe in yourself. This myth is disseminated across the political spectrum. It is the essential message peddled by everyone from Oprah and the entertainment industry to the Christian Right and positive psychologists. But this promise, as the masses of underemployed and unemployed are discovering, is a fiction.16

Historical memory is hijacked by those who carry out war. They seek, when the memory challenges the myth, to obliterate or hide the evidence that exposes the myth as lie. The destruction is pervasive, aided by an establishment, including the media, which apes the slogans and euphemisms parroted by the powerful. Because nearly everyone in wartime is complicit, it is difficult for societies to confront their own culpability and the lie that led to it.

The idiots take over in the final days of crumbling civilizations. Idiot generals wage endless, unwinnable wars that bankrupt the nation. Idiot economists call for reducing taxes for corporation and the rich and cutting social service programs for the poor. They project economic growth on the basis of myth.

But reconciliation, self-awareness, and finally the humility that makes peace possible come only when culture no longer serves a cause or a myth but the most precious and elusive of all human narratives—truth.

Historical memory is hijacked by those who carry out war. They seek, when the memory challenges the myth, to obliterate or hide the evidence that exposes the myth as a life. The destruction is pervasive, aided by an establishment, including the media, which apes the slogans and euphemisms parroted by the powerful. Because nearly everyone in wartime is complicit, it is difficult for societies to confront their own culpability and the life that led to it.

The myth of war creates a new, artificial reality. Moral precepts—ones we have spent a lifetime honoring—are jettisoned. We accept, if not condone, the maiming and killing of others as the regrettable cost of war. We operate under a new moral code.

I read one too many books about Joy Division by people who weren't there, and they always seem to dwell on the dark, the intense, the miserable image of Joy Division.

Comics deal with fundamental archetypes. We've been called the myth-makers of the modern age.

Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.

My favorite actress is Marilyn Monroe.

Everybody who's played Marilyn Monroe before has gone down in flames. It's impossible to capture Marilyn Monroe.

When the legends die, the dreams end; there is no more greatness.

If I were to believe in the stories of the of the gods, then the gods do not need mortals to defend them, do they?

You don't hear many stories about people who grow up, have normal lives, pay taxes and pay bills, have mortgages and have kids. You hear stories about Billy the Kid for a reason.

We are critical of the priests who burned the paper books of the Aztecs because contemporary Europe looked down upon the non-Christian Americans and wanted to destroy their heathen beliefs. But we ourselves have so little esteem for these same beliefs that although the most important ones were recorded by the early Spaniards, we reject them as the fables of primitive nations.

People are inclined to accept all stories of ancient times in an uncritical way – even when these stories concern their own native countries.

People are inclined to accept all stories of ancient times in an uncritical way -even when those stories concern their own native counties...Most people, in fact, will not take trouble in finding out the truth, but are more inclined to accept the first story they hear.

A Je'daii needs darkness and light, shadow and illumination, because without the two there can be no balance. Veer to Bogan, and Ashla feels too constraining, too pure; edge toward Ashla, and Bogan becomes a monstrous myth. A Je'daii without balance between both is no Je'daii at all. He, or she, is simply lost.

Ignorance' is probably the best word to describe public opinion on dietary fat, Harcombe said.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

the myth suggests to us that a "good job" will offer us ample money, a social life, status and work which we will find "rewarding." It's actually astonishing how little we pause to reflect on these terms when at school or college.