Only a creature that can think symbolically about life can conceive of its own death. Our knowledge of death is part of our knowledge of life.

It is the historical mind, rather than the scientific (in the physicist's sense), that destroyed the mythical orientation of European culture; the historian, not the mathematician, introduced the "higher criticism," the standard of actual fact. It is he who is the real apostle of the realistic age.

It is significant that people who refuse to tell their children fairytales do not fear that the children will believe in princes and princesses, but that they will believe in witches and bogeys.

Only a creature that can think symbolically about life can conceive of its own death. Our knowledge of death is part of our knowledge of life.

The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.

The power of magic has no known limits. A person knows, in a fair way, his own physical capacities, the weight of the blows he can deal, the furthest range of his arrows, the strength of his voice, the speed and endurance of his running; but the reaches of his mind are indefinite and, to his feeling, infinite.

If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world of new questions.