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The gods have fled, I know. My sense is the gods have always been essentially absent. I do not believe human beings have played games or sports from the beginning merely to summon or to please or to appease the gods. If anthropologists and historians believe that, it is because they believe whatever they have been able to recover about what humankind told the gods humankind was doing. I believe we have played games, and watched games, to imitate the gods, to become godlike in our worship of eachother and, through those moments of transmutation, to know for an instant what the gods know.
A. Bartlett GiamattiGods? Don't let that impress you. Anyone can be a god if they have enough worshippers. You don't even have to have powers anymore. In my time I've seen theatre gods, gladiator gods, even storyteller gods - you people see gods everywhere. Gives you an excuse for not thinking for yourselves. God is just a word. Like Fury. like demon, Just words people use for things they don't understand. Reverse it and you get dog. It's just as appropriate.
Joanne HarrisYet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-
Langston HughesFear is the mother of all gods ... Nature does all things spontaneously, by herself, without the meddling of the gods.
LucretiusIt is expedient that there should be gods, and, since it is expedient, let us believe that gods exist.
OvidThe gods we make in our own image are tribal gods. They tell you how very, very little you should tolerate outsiders, who are less favoured of the Lord. Amazingly, there are no recorded cases of the holy man going up the mountain and finding that it's the others who are right. It always turns out that God wants unbelievers to suffer, and what could be more noble than to help him a little? When religion rules, toleration disappears, for you cannot cherish the verdict of death to the infidels, yet also tolerate those who disagree - for those are the very same infidels.
Simon BlackburnNature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me - the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love - He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us - nature did it all - not the gods of the religions.
Thomas A. EdisonIt is not for the gods to decide whether or not Man exists - it is for Man to decide whether or not the gods exist.
J. Michael StraczynskiThe gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes bring you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.
Oscar WildeAnd again: No more gods! no more gods! Man is King, Man is God! - But the great Faith is Love!
Arthur RimbaudBut if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.
JoshuaThe relationship between the obedience of Gods people and the triumph of Gods cause is not a relationship of cause and effect but one of cross and resurrection.
John Howard YoderWhen an unconquered country is conquered, people are killed... . That the beloved of the Gods finds very pitiful and grievous. ... If anyone does him wrong, it will be forgiven as far as it can be forgiven... . The beloved of the Gods considers that the greatest of all victories is the victory of righteousness.
AshokaNow as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.
DemocritusAn old art spreading rumours about / Paradise, it begs outside the gates / Of the gods: the active gods come out.
Peter PorterCan you stand? (Aimee) Iโm not helpless. (Fang) Oh, look! Mr. Macho is back in all his glory. Hello, Mr. Macho, itโs so not good to see you again. But you know, Mr. Macho, that youโve been bedridden to the point that your legs arenโt used to carrying your weight and youโre not really human. So if you want to get up and fall, gods forbid I do anything to stop it. After all, I live for Americaโs Funniest Home Videos. Should I fetch a camcorder now? (Aimee)
Sherrilyn KenyonOscar Wilde said that the gods punish us in two ways: first, they don't give us what we want, then, they do. He forgot the third way: we finally see the cost of getting it.
Perry BrassThe place whereon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool.
Ambrose BierceThe Garden of Eden presents the same story: If you want to make yourself gods, you'll find you're akin to the animals.
Frank Moore Crossthe arts of Mexico are heavy with the weight of the past, of gods that demanded the sacrifice of a thousand beating hearts in a day, of a world that ended every fifty-two years, of warriors who rushed into battle wearing the heads of jaguars or clothed in the flayed skins of their human victims.
Biloine W. YoungWe look at the ancient Greeks with their gods on a mountain top throwing lightning bolts and say, 'Those ancient Greeks. They were so silly. So primitive and naive. Not like our religions. We have burning bushes talking to people and guys walking on water. We're ...sophisticated.'
Paul ProvenzaIt may be said that myths give to the transcendent reality an immanent, this-worldly objectivity. Myths speak about gods and demons as powers on which man knows himself to be dependent, powers whose favors he needs, powers whose wrath he fears. Myths express the knowledge that man is not master of the world and his life, that the world within which he lives is full of riddles and mysteries and that human life also is full of riddles and mysteries.
Rudolf BultmannOnce, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings โ stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.
Greg BearFantasy is my favorite genre for reading and writing. We have more options than anyone else, and the best props and special effects. That means if you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you're at it? Go ahead.
Patrick RothfussDo not believe anything because it is said by an authority, or if it is said to come from angels, or from Gods, or from an inspired source. Believe it only if you have explored it in your own heart and mind and body and found it to be true. Work out your own path, through diligence.
Gautama BuddhaAmerican Gods is about 200,000 words long, and I'm sure there are words that are simply in there 'cause I like them. I know I couldn't justify each and every one of them.
Neil GaimanI feel like a goddess, jailed in her Olympus. Little wonder how the gods toyed with humans. Toyed with women, to watch them squirm, pollinate the seeds of despair; toyed with men, to satiate their Seven Deadly Sins.
Ellen HopkinsAfter men have got their exaltations and their crowns--have become Gods, even the sons of God--are made Kings of kings and Lords of lords, they have the power then of propagating their species in spirit; and that is the first of their operations with regard to organizing a world. Power is then given to them to organize the elements, and then commence the organization of tabernacles.
Brigham YoungThe Gods have proclaimed Christ to have been most pious, but the Christians are a confused and vicious sect.
PorphyryChaos isnโt a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but they refuse. They cling to the realm, or the gods, or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.
George R. R. MartinIf you ever leave me again,โ she said, her eyes stinging, โI swear to all the gods-โ Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth. โConsider me warned,โ Percy said. โI missed you, too.
Rick RiordanLet it crumble! Let the rocks revile me and flowers wilt at my coming. Your whole universe is not enough to prove me wrong. You are the king of gods, king of stones and stars, king of the waves of the sea. But you are not the king of man.
Jean-Paul SartreOne may call the world a myth , in which bodies and things are visible, but souls and minds hidden. Besides, to wish to teach the whole truth about the Gods to all produces contempt in the foolish, because they cannot understand, and lack of zeal in the good, whereas to conceal the truth by myths prevents the contempt of the foolish, and compels the good to practice philosophy.
Sallust