Quotes About Myth

The challenge for a writer looking at history is to figure out what is history and what is myth. After all, what you are looking at is an interpretation of history, and so at some level, it becomes an interpretation of an interpretation.

I read mostly Irish, African, Japanese, South American, and African writers. You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style.

The myth of writer as, like, Asperger-style misanthrope, or, like, the Jack Nicholson, 'As Good As It Gets' - it just doesn't work, because writers, in order to write good characters, need to understand people. You need to understand your audience. You need to have so much empathy you could almost encourage empathy in others.

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

I believe that this idea of story or myth or this thing that Joseph Campbell writes about is sort of an inter-connective spiritual force - like The Force in 'Star Wars' - where it doesn't matter where you were raised, or what your background is, there are certain elements of story that totally appeal to you.

Everyone has this idea of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin: the woman being pretty and prancing around while the guy writes all the songs.

But those are legends and lore; they are faith and fictions. Not everyone is a character in a story.

There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need do only inner work Ã¢â'¬Â¦ that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself.… The fact is, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings. —CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER, The Timeless Way of Building

There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need do only inner work . . . that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself. . . . The fact is, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings. —Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

According to Celtic myths, there were once magical vessels that "satisfied the tastes and needs of all who ate and drank from them."* These myths led to the legend of the Holy Grail. The modern-day equivalent of the Holy Grail is the business plan.

Primal myth and modern delusion joined in their assumption that mankind is only one—perhaps the least—of the highly evolved and dominant races of this planet's long and largely unknown career.

Ulrich the Axe, famed for his bloody deeds among Christians and pagans alike.

Kuranes no era moderno, y no pensaba como los demás escritores. Mientras ellos se esforzaban en despojar la vida de sus bordados ropajes del mito y mostrar con desnuda fealdad lo repugnante que es la realidad, Kuranes buscaba tan sólo la belleza. Y cuando no conseguía revelar la verdad y la experiencia, la buscaba en la fantasía y la ilusión, en cuyo mismo umbral la descubría entre los brumosos recuerdos de los cuentos y los sueños de niñez.

Whilst they strove to strip from life its embroidered robes of myth, and to shew in naked ugliness the foul thing that is reality, Kuranes sought for beauty alone.

De modo que el buscador de paraísos no es mas que una víctima de mitos establecidos o de su propia imaginación.

Denn dieser Ort konnte keine gewöhnliche Stadt sein – er musste den ursprünglichen Kern und Mittelpunkt irgendeines urzeitlichen und unfassbaren Kapitels der Erdgeschichte gebildet haben, der nur in den dunkelsten und verzerrtesten Mythen vagen Widerhall findet und vom Chaos der Erdwehen verschlungen wurde, lange bevor irgendeine uns bekannte Menschenrasse aus dem Affenstadium herauswatschelte

Kuranes was not modern, and did not think like others who wrote. Whilst they strove to strip from life its embroidered robes of myth, and to shew in naked ugliness the foul thing that is reality, Kuranes sought for beauty alone.1 When truth and experience failed to reveal it, he sought it in fancy and illusion, and found it on his very doorstep, amid the nebulous memories of childhood tales and dreams.

The widely accepted assertion that, only if you let markets be will everyone be paid correctly and thus fairly, according to his worth, is a myth. Only when we part with this myth and grasp the political nature of the market and the collective nature of individual productivity will we be able to build a more just society in which historical legacies and collective actions, and not just individual talents and efforts, are properly taken into account in deciding how to reward people.

That legend—and it is more legend than historical fact—inspired a race in 1896 at the first modern Olympic Games over approximately the same route. Only 17 runners participated in that first race. In 2010, 20,000 runners appeared for the 2,500th anniversary celebration.

Behind the constantly repeated cliché of the "mightiest power on earth," there lurked the dangerous myth of omnipotence.

The good and the beautiful is not forgotten; it lives in legend and in song.

and from that day, even till now, all the storks have been called Peter. The

No, the state is anything but the result of a contract! No one with even just an ounce of common sense would agree to such a contract. I have a lot of contracts in my files, but nowhere is there one like this. The state is the result of aggressive force and subjugation. It has evolved without contractual foundation, just like a gang of protection racketeers. And concerning the struggle of all against all: that is a myth.

It seems like a totally gratuitous myth to tell people a giant rabbit comes round at night leaving candy in a haphazard way around the house... and the cover shows the bunny caught in the act.