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Well, I think the Yoruba gods are truthful. Truthful in the sense that i consider religion and the construct of deities simply an extension of human qualities taken, if you like, to the nth degree. i mistrust gods who become so separated from humanity that enormous crimes can be committed in their names. i prefer gods who can be brought down to earth and judged, if you like.
Wole SoyinkaHowever far back we may be able to trace the - so to speak - internal history of the Universe, there can be no question of arguing that this or that external origin is either probable or improbable. We do not have, and we necessarily could not have, experience of other Universes to tell us that Universes, or Universes with these particular features, are the work of Gods, or of Gods of this or that particular sort.
Antony FlewSoon,โ said the crackling voice of the flame, coming from behind him, โthey will fall. Soon they will fall and the star people will meet the earth people. There will be heroes among them, and men who will slay monsters and bring knowledge, but none of them will be gods. This is a poor place for gods.
Neil GaimanNow departure from the world of men is nothing to fear, if gods exist: because they would not involve you in any harm. If they do not exist, or if they have no care for humankind, then what is life to me in a world devoid of gods, or devoid of providence? But they do exist, and they do care for humankind: and they have put it absolutely in man's power to avoid falling into the true kinds of harm.
Marcus AureliusHavenโt you ever noticed that people who win say itโs because the gods know they are in the right, but if they lose, it wasnโt the gods who declared them wrong? Their opponent cheated, or their equipment was bad.
Tamora PierceThe brilliant Schiller was wrong in his Joan of Arc when he said against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. It is actually by means of the gods that we make our stupidity and gullibility into something ineffable.
Christopher HitchensWizards don't believe in gods in the same way that most people don't find it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know they're there, they know they're there for a purpose, they'd probably agree that they have a place in a well-organised universe, but they wouldn't see the point of believing, of going around saying "O great table, without whom we are as naught." Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe in them or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees.
Terry PratchettTo them that ask: Where hast thou seen the Gods, or how knowest thou certainly that there be Gods, that thou art so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it.
Marcus AureliusI don't expect that the scientific community now embraces and kisses me 'Oh wonderful, great you did!' we have to live with critics, this is normal. Chariots of the Gods was full of speculation, I had 238 question marks. Nobody read the question mark. They always said: Mr. Von Daniken is saying... I did not say, I asked the questions, would that be a posibility? In Chariots of the Gods, I made clear difference between a speculations and facts.
Erich von DรคnikenWe swallowed a few bites-not to much scince the food of the gods can burn you to ashes is you overindulge. I guess thats why you don't see many fat gods
Rick RiordanThe devil and God are components of a Siamese twin. Neither has any existence apart from the other. In denying the existence of the one, Christians have helped to kill the other. If there need to be no fear of hell, people may well ask what is the attraction of heaven? Gods and devils were born together. Gods and devils will die together.
Chapman CohenFor we must not build temples according to the same rules to all gods alike, since the performance of the sacred rites varies with the various gods.
Marcus Vitruvius PollioAnd again: No more gods! no more gods! Man is King, Man is God! - But the great Faith is Love!
Arthur RimbaudGreece is the home of the gods; they may have died but their presence still makes itself felt. The gods were of human proportion: they were created out of the human spirit.
Henry MillerThe Olympic games should be a matter between individual athletes and the gods. Noisy flag-waving dishonors gods and men alike.
Dave BeardWhen men are unhappy, they do not imagine they can ever cease to be so; and when some calamity has fallen on them, they do not see how they can get rid of it. Nevertheless, both arrive; and the gods have ordered it so, in the end men seek it from the gods
EpictetusWhen the Greeks said, Whom the gods love die young, they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored by the gods stay young till the day they die; young and playful.
Eric HofferIn the years of the Roman Republic, before the Christian era, Roman education was meant to produce those character traits that would make the ideal family man. Children were taught primarily to be good to their families. To revere gods, one's parents, and the laws of the state were the primary lessons for Roman boys. Cicero described the goal of their child rearing as "self- control, combined with dutiful affection to parents, and kindliness to kindred.
C. SommervilleThe 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 CrossThat power of the Gods which orders for the good things which are not uniform, and which happen contrary to expectation, is commonly called Fortune, and it is for this reason that the Goddess is especially worshipped in public by cities; for every city consists of elements which are not uniform.
SallustThe Irish believed that gods, druids, poets, and others in touch with the magical world could be literal shape-shifters
Thomas CahillPerhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate that the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwoโs fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself.
Chinua AchebeAnybody depending on somebody else's gods is depending on a fox not to eat chickens.
Zora Neale HurstonConsciously or unconsciously, most theists see in gods and devils, heaven and hell, reward and punishment, a whip to lash the people into obedience, meekness and contentment.... The philosophy of atheism expresses the expansion and growth of the human mind. The philosophy of theism, if we can call it a philosophy, is static and fixed.
Emma GoldmanIt 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 BultmannIn our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters; and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods.
Herman MelvilleIndeed, intolerance is essential only to monotheism; an only God is by nature a jealous God who will not allow another to live. On the other hand, polytheistic gods are naturally tolerant, they live and let live.
Arthur SchopenhauerPeople are always the start for meanimals. When I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural beings,immortals, the deadthese are all people to me.
Tanith LeeOh these foolish men! They could not create so much as a worm, but they create gods by the dozens.
Michel de MontaigneAmerican 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 GaimanWhen it turned out that he could, Karou dropped to her knees to genuflect. "Gods of math and physics," she intoned, "I accept your gift of this clever fair-haired boy
Laini TaylorThe dignity of this end of endowment of man's life with new commodity appeareth by the estimation that antiquity made of such as guided thereunto ; for whereas founders of states, lawgivers, extirpators of tyrants, fathers of the people, were honoured but with the titles of demigods, inventors ere ever consecrated among the gods themselves.
Francis BaconSince the masses of the people are inconstant, full of unruly desires, passionate, and reckless of consequences, they must be filled with fears to keep them in order. The ancients did well, therefore, to invent gods, and the belief in punishment after death.
PolybiusHow could poetry and literature have arisen from something as plebian as the cuneiform equivalent of grocery-store bar codes? I prefer the version in which Prometheus brought writing to man from the gods. But then I remind myself that...we should not be too fastidious about where great ideas come from. Ultimately, they all come from a wrinkled organ that at its healthiest has the color and consistency of toothpaste, and in the end only withers and dies.
Alice Weaver FlahertySex and beauty are inseparable, like life and consciousness. And the intelligence which goes with sex and beauty, and arises out of sex and beauty, is intuition." "And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages on the depths of the seven seas, and through the salt they reel with drunken delight and in the tropics tremble they with love and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods.
D. H. LawrenceTo discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods. They need but common sense. They have only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of each of the members who compose it, and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury to beings of the species.
Jean MeslierWeariness that wants to reach the ultimate with one leap, with one fatal leap, a poor ignorant weariness that does not want to want any more: this created all gods and afterworlds.
Friedrich NietzscheThe core of common culture is religion. Tribes survive and flourish because they have gods, who fuse many wills into a single will, and demand and reward the sacrifices on which social life depends.
Roger ScrutonWell I've been calling myself Scarlet Pattinson for several weeks. Have you seen Robert Pattinson? Hottest. Man. Ever. And no, I don't care if that makes me a couger. He sings with the voice of an angel. Gods, I love when a man sings to me. You never did because your voice is terrrible." She shuddered in distaste. "I swear, its like a demon running its claws over brimsone.
Gena ShowalterIn a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. โDo it,โ says the king, โfor I am your lawful ruler.โ โDo it,โ says the priest, โfor I command you in the names of the gods.โ โDo it,โ says the rich man, โand all this gold shall be yours.โ So tell meโwho lives and who dies?
George R. R. MartinResponsibility for the creation of the good world in which the good life may be realized, which the frustrated ages of the past loaded upon the gods, is now being assumed by man. The ideal of this modern drift is the realization of the full joy in living.
Eustace HaydonIf you go to space, you'll look down and see no national boundaries. You'll never see the gods people are killing each other over, but they're incredibly real.
Neil GaimanOur God and Souldiers we alike adore,Evn at the Brink of danger; not before:After deliverance, both alike required;Our Gods forgotten, and our Souldiers slighted.
Francis QuarlesIt is the search for beauty...That is what it is. We find ourselves on this earth--gods and men--and we know that it is beautiful. That is one of the few things we understand--beauty; because it is there, in the world, and we can see it all about us. We want beauty. It requires our love. It just does.
Alexander McCall Smith