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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 GiamattiI'm not going to get involved in a debate with you. Just remember this: the gods give, and the gods take away. Even if you are not aware of having been granted what you posses, the gods remember what they gave you. They don't forget a thing. You should use the abilities you have been granted with the utmost care.
Haruki MurakamiThere is an old story from the Eastern tradition that says that when the gods created the universe, they found a place for everything but the truth, and this created a problem, because the gods did not want this wisdom discovered right away. One of the gods suggested the top of the highest mountain, another the farthest star, a third spoke up for the dark side of the moon, and another for the bottom of the deepest ocean. Finally, they decide to place truth inside the human heart. In that way, we would search for it all over the universe, with the secret within us all the time.
Stephen KendrickWhen gods die, self-respect buds', murmured Orland Fank. 'Gods and their examples are not needed by those who respect themselves and, consequently, respect others. Gods are for children, for little, fearful people, for those who would have no responsibility to themselves or their fellows.
Michael MoorcockBut if the gods do not exist at all - then we are lost,' I said. On the contrary - we are found!' said Aesop. But when we are afraid, who can we turn to, if not the gods?' Ourselves. We turn to ourselves anyway. We only pretend there are gods and that they care about us. It is a comforting falsehood.
Erica JongPhysical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits.
Willard Van Orman QuineLong ago man formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. Whatever seemed unattainable to his desires - or forbidden to him - he attributed to these gods... Now he has himself approached very near to realizing this ideal, he has nearly become a god himself.
Sigmund FreudAll this care for the world, we must believe, is taken by the Gods without any act of will or labor. As bodies which possess some power produce their effects by merely existing: e.g. the sun gives light and heat by merely existing; so, and far more so, the providence of the Gods acts without effort to itself and for the good of the objects of its forethought. This solves the problems of the Epicureans , who argue that what is divine neither has trouble itself nor gives trouble to others.
SallustThe reality is today most of our political leaders want to be treated as gods and semi-gods, from the security details to the fuss around them and so on.
Kumi NaidooBoileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present-day kings aren't very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation and about the only heroes left are the scientists and the poor.
John SteinbeckWizards 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 PratchettIt is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.
Robert Green IngersollWe 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 CohenWe are the gods of the atoms that make up ourselves but we are also the atoms of the gods that make up the universe.
Manly HallThe Indian gods are imposing, the Greek gods are not. Indeed they are not brave, not self-controlled, they have no manners, they are not gentlemen and ladies.
Gerard Manley HopkinsMystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.
Jean CocteauGods revelation has always been in deeds. Gods interventions in history have always been in deeds, in actions. Then there are those who interpret the actions, and then there are those who write down the interpretations of the actions.
Donald WuerlThere is no place in the Humanist worldview for either immortality or God in the valid meanings of those terms. Humanism contends that instead of the gods creating the cosmos, the cosmos, in the individualized form of human beings giving rein to their imagination, created the gods.
Corliss LamontThe lover is a monotheist who knows that other people worship different gods but cannot himself imagine that there could be other gods.
Theodor ReikThis seems to be advanced as the surest basis for our belief in the existence of gods, that there is no race so uncivilized, no one in the world so barbarous that his mind has no inkling of a belief in gods.
Marcus Tullius CiceroGreece 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 MillerSo let me tell you what I think about gods. I think a real god is not going to be so scared or angry that he tries to keep other people downโฆA real god doesnโt care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them.
Orson Scott CardThe Gods did not reveal, from the beginning, all things to us, but in the course of time through seeking we may learn & know things better. But as for certain truth no man knows it, nor shall he know it, neither of the Gods nor yet of all things that I speak. For even if by chance he were to utter The Final Truth, he would himself not know it: for all is but a woven web of guesses.
XenophanesYou know who my gods are, who I believe in fervently? Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson - she's probably the top - Mozart, Shakespeare, Keats. These are wonderful gods who have gotten me through the narrow straits of life.
Maurice SendakThe Greeks, it will be recalled, regarded Eros, the god of love, as the eldest of the gods; but also as the youngest, born fresh and dewy-eyed in every living heart.
Joseph CampbellOscar 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 BrassI talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.
Ursula K. Le GuinI think Gods wrath and purgatory are the only things keeping me on the straight and narrow. I like the idea of purgatory. Its like a cosmic do-over.
Katee SackhoffThe 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 CrossIsnโt it only through laughter that we become one with the gods and thus can endure life and can overcome all the horror and waste and suffering here on earth? โฆIsnโt it only through laughter we can stay human?
James ClavellJust listen,โ she said. โYou canโt kill him in cold blood.โ โWhyever not?โ Ye gods grant me patience. โBecause heโll be dead,โ she said as patiently as she could, โand Lady Claraโs reputation will be stained forever. Do not, I pray you, do anything, Lord Longmore. Leave this to us.โ โUs.โ โMy sisters and me.โ โWhat do you propose? Dressing him to death? Tying him up and making him listen to fashion descriptions?
Loretta ChaseGod does not deal directly with man: it is by means of spirits that all the intercourse and communication of gods with men, both in waking life and in sleep, is carried on.
SocratesWe enjoy telling ourselves that we will soon be gods, masters of the planet, manipulating the genes of living creatures and rebuilding the world at a nano-level as we lie back in our hammocks, attended by our robot servants. I don't believe a word of it, and I'm not sure many of us do.
Paul KingsnorthIf there are gods, why is the world so full of pain and injustice?' 'Because of men like you.
George R. R. MartinIn a sense everything that is exists to climb. All evolution is a climbing towards a higher form. Climbing for life as it reaches towards the consciousness, towards the spirit. We have always honored the high places because we sense them to be the homes of gods. In the mountains there is the promise of... something unexplainable. A higher place of awareness, a spirit that soars. So we climb... and in climbing there is more than a metaphor; there is a means of discovery.
Rob ParkerIn our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters; and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods.
Herman MelvilleThe gods offer no rewards for intellect. There was never one yet that showed any interest in it.
Mark TwainAs a breath on glass, - As witch-fires that burn, The gods and monsters pass, Are dust, and return. (โThe Face of the Skiesโ)
George SterlingIn choosing your god, you choose your way of looking at the universe. There are plenty of Gods. Choose yours.
Joseph CampbellLet him submit to me! Only the god of death is so relentless, Death submits to no oneโso mortals hate him most of all the gods. Let him bow down to me! I am the greater king, I am the elder-born, I claimโthe greater man.
HomerUFO mythology is similar to the message of the classical religions where God sends his Angels as emissaries who offer salvation to those who accept the faith and obey his Prophets. Today, the chariots of the gods are UFOs. What we are witnessing in the past half century is the spawning of a New Age religion.
Paul Kurtz