Quotes About Myth

Since the Greek myths, the greatest stories are premised on the idea of, 'A stranger arrives.'

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

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest - but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." ~ John F. Kennedy

people want to establish a canon, because people want to imagine that there are great writers and lesser writers and they want the mythology, they want the narrative for themselves. And it's embarrassing.

That's how it is with legends. The greater they sound, the more must've got left out.

The myth about the CIA dated back to the Bay of Pigs: that all its successes were secret, that only its failures were trumpeted. The truth was that the CIA could not succeed without recruiting and sustaining skilled and daring officers and foreign agents. The agency failed daily at that mission, and to pretend otherwise was a delusion.

Diogenes's central point is in effect the same as mine: that officially sanctioned religious records only tell you when worship seems to work and excise all evidence to the contrary.

But it is important to underline the point that the myth presents battles against the gods as crises of power, not manifestations of sinfulness. Salmoneus

The self-congratulatory popular account insists that Dr. King called on the nation to fully accept its own creed, and the walls came a-tumbling down. This conventional narrative is soothing, moving, and politically acceptable, and has only the disadvantage of bearing no resemblance to what actually happened.

may be easier to lasso the wind than to find a sustaining story for the American West. Still, as storytellers it is our obligation to keep trying.

beliefs are perhaps more allegorical than factual.

In any field, there's usually some kind of mythological reward you're supposed to receive if everybody considers you a success. But in my experience, there's a lot more honest joy to be had from taking pleasure in the work itself.

For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."—John F. Kennedy

We allowed ourselves to accept the politics of inevitability, the sense that history could move in only one direction: toward liberal democracy...We imbibed the myth of an "end of history". In doing so, we lowered our defences, constrained our imagination, and opened the way for precisely the kinds of regimes we told ourselves could never return.

Both fascism and communism were responses to globalization: to the real and perceived inequalities it created, and the apparent helplessness of the democracies in addressing them. Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people.

Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people.

In the politics of eternity, the seduction by a mythicized past prevents us from thinking about possible futures. The habit of dwelling on victimhood dulls the impulse of self-correction.

Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people. They put a face on globalization, arguing that its complex challenges were the result of a conspiracy against the nation.

Both fascism and communism were responses to globalization: to the real and perceived inequalities it created, and the apparent helplessness of the democracies in addressing them. Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people. T

After communism in eastern Europe came to an end in 1989–91, we imbibed the myth of an "end of history." In doing so, we lowered our defenses, constrained our imagination, and opened the way for precisely the kinds of regimes we told ourselves could never return.

The seduction by a mythicized pas prevents us from thinking about possible futures

In the politics of eternity, the seduction by a mythicised past prevents us from thinking about possible futures. The habit of dwelling on victimhood dulls the impulse of self-correction.

Both fascism and communism [in the 20th Century] were responses to globalization: to the real and perceived inequalities it created, and apparent helplessness of the democracies in addressing them. Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people. They put a face on on globalization, arguing that its complex challenges were the result of a conspiracy against the nation.

If the politics of inevitability is like a coma, the politics of eternity is like hypnosis: We stare at the spinning vortex of cyclical myth until we fall into a trance—and then we do something shocking at someone else's orders. The