The value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity.

'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.

The devil loves 'curing' a small fault by giving you a great one.

You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?

He who has not forgiven an enemy has never yet tasted one of the most sublime enjoyments of life.

You can give the Devil too much or too little attention.

The human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naivety, error, contradiction, even (as in the cursing Psalms) wickedness are not removed. The total result is not "the Word of God" in the sense that every passage in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God.