Quotes About Myths

The worldview of a people, though normally left unspoken in the daily business of buying and selling and counting shekels, is to be found in a culture's stories, myths, and rituals, which, if studied aright, inevitably yield insight into the deepest concerns of a people by unveiling the invisible fears and desires inscribed on human hearts.

A prophet's task is to reveal the fault lines hidden beneath the comfortable surface of the worlds we invent for ourselves, the national myths as well as the little lies and delusions of control and security that get us through the day. And Jeremiah does this better than anyone.

This insistence on unity was the source of one of the most potent myths of the postwar period – the idea that the responsibility for all the evils of the war rested exclusively with the Germans. If it was only 'they' who had perpetrated atrocities upon 'us', then the rest of Europe was released from all accountability for the injustices it had perpetrated upon itself.

More recently, Britt Beemer, of America's Research Group, found that: One in six said their pastor said something to make them believe that the Book of Genesis contained myths and legends that we know are untrue.8 Over 20% (one in five) said their pastors taught that Christians could believe in an earth that is millions or billions of years old.

In my experience, most people have a narrow view of intelligence, tending to think of it mainly in terms of academic ability. This is why so many people who are smart in other ways end up thinking that they're not smart at all. There are myths surrounding creativity as well.

Don't Know Much About Mythology takes a slightly different tack. It sets out to examine all the fascinating myths created by these ancient cultures and relate them to their histories and achievements.

Nights through dreams tell the myths forgotten by the day.

The conclusion that the myth-makers thought in much the same way as we still think in dreams is almost self-evident. The first attempts at myth-making can, of course, be observed in children, whose games of make-believe often contain historical echoes. But one must certainly put a large question-mark after the assertion that myths spring from the "infantile" psychic life of the race. They are on the contrary the most mature product of that young humanity.

But the very fact that this process is unconscious gives us the reason why man has thought of everything except the psyche in his attempts to explain myths. He simply didn't know that the psyche contains all the images that have ever given rise to myths, and that our unconscious is an acting and suffering subject with an inner drama which primitive man rediscovers, by means of analogy, in the processes of nature both great and small.11 [9]

Myths, however, consist of symbols that were not invented but happened.

We can keep from a child all knowledge of earlier myths, but we cannot take from him the need for mythology.

The Enlightenment sought to rid the world of myths, but the nation could not justify itself without them.

Myths tend to spiral out of control. Do you howl at the full moon and steal maidens to devour? Depends on the maiden, he said. Was he flirting with me? Devouring didn't really go with flirting, but his tone of voice did. Was this how werewolves flirted? Hey, baby, if I had to kill any girl and eat her flesh, it would be you... clean sweep

Unsafe, sire. He lives in the past. He is a dreamer of ancient times, or rather, of the myths of what ancient times used to be. Such men are harmless in themselves, but their queer lack of realism makes them fools for others.

The outstanding truths of life, the great and unquestioned phenomena of society, are not to be argued away as myths and vagaries when they do not fit within our little moulds. If necessary, we must remake the moulds.

Folk tales and myths, they've lasted for a reason. We tell them over and over because we keep finding truths in them, and we keep finding life in them.

Madonna, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe - they were myths of greatness.

Pay attention to science and not myths: We think liars won't look you in the eyes, but it turns out an honest person will only look you in the eyes about 60 percent of the time.

It pursues a divide-and-conquer strategy: single versus married women, working women versus homemakers, middle-versus working-class. It manipulates a system of rewards and punishments, elevating women who follow its rules, isolating those who don't. The backlash remarkets old myths about women as new facts and ignores all appeals to reason. Cornered, it denies its own existence, points an accusatory finger at feminism, and burrows deeper underground. Backlash

Myths impart order to the disorder of human perception and the perceived "chaos of human experience."*

a space of time is a great breeder of myths.

Scientists are the destroyers of myths and sometimes the myths they destroy are there own.

What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal.

the disparity now gripping the United States is an inevitable consequence of white Americans' steadfast failure to confront where they came from, who they are, and the lies and myths they use to mask past and present crimes. History "is not the past," the film quotes Baldwin as saying. "History is the present. We carry our history with us. To think otherwise is criminal.