Quotes About Myths

People need foundation myths.

A glorious place, a glorious age, I tell you! A very Neon Renaissance—And the myths that actually touched you at that time—not Hercules, Orpheus, Ulysses and Aeneas—but Superman, Captain Marvel, Batman.

There are many stories," Unlikely Worlds said, "but most follow similar patterns.

What I like about baroque is the reemergence of pre-Christian religion. The art of baroque mixes ancient pre-Christian myths with Christian imagery and each reflects upon the other.

Deep down, most humans prefer living out their lives surrounded by comfortable certainties, guided by warm myths and metaphors, knowing that they'll understand their children, and their children will understand them.

All knowledge systems, from modern science to those embedded in the most ancient of creation myths, can be thought of as maps of reality. They are never just true or false. Perfect descriptions of reality are unattainable, unnecessary, and too costly for learning organisms, including humans.

Among pernicious myths is the one where people always get very upbeat and generous and other-directed right before they eliminate their own map for keeps. The truth is that the hours before a suicide are usually an interval of enormous conceit and self-involvement.

Popular culture is the symbolic representation of what people already believe .

Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson.

Most national identities rest in part on a series of shared pseudohistorical myths.

Bestaat er een leven dat niet doordrongen is van levensnoodzakelijke vergissingen? Bestaat er een helder, transparant leven, zonder vernederende wortels, zonder verzonnen motieven, zonder mythen die uit begeerte zijn ontstaan?

It's hard to know what has become folklore and what is reality. But don't all myths stem from some semblance of fact?

There are a lot of myths which make the human race cruel and barbarous and unkind. Good and Evil, Sin and Crime, Free Will and the like delusions made to excuse God for damning men and to excuse men for crucifying each other.

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact.

A good many things go around in the dark besides Santa Claus.

It has become too easy to see that the luckless men of the past lived by mistakes, even absurd beliefs, so we may well fail in a decent respect for them, and forget that historians of the future will point out that we too lived by myths.

For the most part the regular profession has either ignored or else denounced fasting. Fasting is a fad or it is quackery. They do not study it, do not employ it and do not endorse it. On the contrary, they declare that "the sick must eat to keep up their strength.

It's one of our favorite American myths that broad plains necessarily make broad minds, and high mountains make high purpose.

The sea always offers up incredible stories of survivors' fortitude. Myths of a lot of countries have variations on that.

It's not about superheroes. This is the method of universal storytelling that all people have... To me, they're the same as the Greek myths or the Roman myths or religious figures of every religion. These are common characters that we use to express stories about being a better person or what you would do when faced with various things.

The vast majority of studies say anti-aging supplements don't work.

I think that critiquing the myths of our society and helping people find their way through them is a very important thing. It's a theme that goes through all of my work.

This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the prominent place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific study of ancient faiths.

More than other subjects, there's a myth that you have to be an absolute genius to be good at maths and to enjoy it, so I think it's less accessible for people. Even the word 'maths' makes people screw their face up. They do the maths face.