Quotes About Myth

Myths are about the human struggle to deal with the great passages of time and life--birth, death, marriage, the transitions from childhood to adulthood to old age. They meet a need in the psychological or spiritual nature of humans that has absolutely nothing to do with science. To try to turn a myth into a science, or a science into a myth, is an insult to myths, an insult to religion, and an insult to science. In attempting to do this, creationists have missed the significance, meaning, and sublime nature of myths. They took a beautiful story of creation and re-creation and ruined it.

Admixing the inner space of dream, trance, and myth with the events of everyday existence characterized every belief system worldwide before the Greeks.....time meandered back and forth between reality and myth.

Freud becomes one of the dramatis personae, in fact, as discoverer of the great and beautiful modern myth of psychoanalysis. By myth, I mean a poetic, dramatic expression of a hidden truth; and in placing this emphasis, I do not intend to put into question the scientific validity of psychoanalysis.

The claim that myth is always a narrative spin-off of ritual; the claim that myth is the projection of human anxieties onto a cosmological scrim; the claim that myths are invented to give sanction to human predilections and institutions... These are ways of trivializing a mode of thought that has served humanity well for a very long time.

The myth is a surviving fragment of the psychic life of the infancy of the race whilst the dream is the myth of the individual.

Nowhere was Darwin able to point to one bona fide case of natural selection having actually generated evolutionary change in nature....Ultimately, the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century.

You must forgive everyone. Now many would say that "We cannot forgive, it's very difficult." But it's a myth whether you forgive or don't forgive. What do you do? You don't do anything. But when you don't forgive, then you are playing into wrong hands. That means you are torturing yourself, while those who have troubled you are quite happy.

News objectivity is a twentieth-century myth. We only complain about propaganda when we don't agree with it.

We can certainly see contemporary examples of people who radically change. As long you believe your spouse will never change and you keep telling yourself that, then you live with no hope. But if you understand that that's a myth, then you open up the door to hope.

The Gods and Goddesses of myth, legend and fairy tale represent archetypes, real potencies and potentialities deep within the psyche, which, when allowed to flower permit us to be more fully human.

Some tropes are universal. Boy meets girl. Betrayal and revenge. The search to discover a hidden truth.... A mother's love isn't cliché, it's universal. These things are archetypes. They're the building blocks of myth and legend. They are a big part about what it means to be human.

The act of abortion positions women at their most powerful, and that is why it is so strongly opposed by many in society. Historically viewed as and conditioned to be passive, dependent creatures, victims of biological circumstance, women often find it difficult to embrace this power over life and death. They fall prey to the assumption, the myth, that they cannot be trusted with it.

[Science fiction is] a mode of romance with a strong inherent tendency to myth.

I myself, at one time, wanted to be like the explorers of the Himalayas that I used to read about; people intoxicated on the myth of history.

The Rising was mainly a piece of streat theatre designed by poets for dramatic effect. For better or worse, it became part of the founding myth which states need - but which they should move on from after a time. Major John MacBride, in a cameo performance in which he left Jacobs Mill, as he had entered it, immaculately dressed down to the white spats, told his colleagues Next time lads, don't shut yourself up behind four walls. It was good advice.

It is a myth that the success of science in our time is mainly due to the huge amounts of money that have been spent on big machines. What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.

I have tried to write stories that go into the underworld of myth and bring out life and fire — where the old world looked at a woman alone and immortal and said: she must long to die, I have tried to say: look at her live!

Today's Communism can survive only if it abandons the myth of an infallible party, if it continues to think, and if it becomes democratic.

Often their rage erupts because they believe that all ways of looking that highlight difference subvert the liberal belief in a universal subjectivity (we are all just people) that they think will make racism disappear. They have a deep emotional investment in the myth of sameness even as their actions reflect the primacy of whiteness as a sign informing who they are and how they think.

When we start making distinctions between soul and spirit, we're in very, very murky waters. There is the whole issue of the English language, which has a rather limited vocabulary when it comes to psychological descriptions, not to speak of spiritual descriptions. We're good mythically - the English language is superb for myth. But we're not very good for psychology or spirituality.

I was essentially paid to perpetuate the myth that we are all, or should at least try to be, 17 and a size 2 forever.

We have the kind of self-made-man myth, which says that super-successful people did it themselves.

All minorities think they're immune, but we're absolutely part of the one in five that gets skin cancer! It's a myth, and myths are meant to be debunked!

There is a myth that the purpose of education is to give one the means for upward mobility and success. The plain truth is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does need desperately more peacemakers, healers, restorers, story tellers, and lovers of every shape and form.

For me, there was no great myth around the movies when I was a young child. My father was very simple about the whole thing. He did not consider cinema an art. Cinema was entertainment. Literature and music were art.

myself ... is merely an instrument to connect life and a myth

The myth of Bardot is finished, but Brigitte is me.

There are still horrible things that go on because of the myth of race, but we don't have to succumb totally.

I don’t think that because I’m not married it’s made my life any less. That old-maid myth is garbage.

Anthropologists have promulgated the myth of the peaceful savage so effectively that when actual deaths by war are tabulated for prestate simple societies, one is astonished by how such a notion can continue to be taught to students.

Successful model? That's a myth. The year I modeled was the most painful year of my life. Editors would always talk to you in the third person as though you were merely a piece of merchandise.

Incredibly deep research combines with the talents of a fine historian and writer to produce superb narrative history. The true character and relationship of these two iconic westerners emerge to suppress myth and correct more than a century of tomes laden with bad history.

I always thought what if you took a myth of childhood like the tooth fairy and made it a central scary thing. We did it on Hellboy and we did it on 'Don't be afraid of the dark'.

Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place i1legally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1,500 percent since legalization.

If something controls you in a way that puzzles you, think of it as a mystery. Mysteries are best approached by closing your eyes and mouth to experience darkness and silence. I find new and healing images in that dark, silent place away from emotions that control me. Do not be afraid to close your eyes and be silent in prayer, meditation, rest or sleep. In those states you may rediscover a new self. Then your life, time and thoughts will become yours again and you can live your unique myth.

It doesn't matter how far you might rise. At some point you are bound to stumble because if you’re constantly doing what we do, raising the bar. If you're constantly pushing yourself higher, higher the law of averages not to mention the Myth of Icarus predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do I want you to know this, remember this: there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.

Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it’s a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It’s neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment.

I was 15 years old when I first heard the name Mandela, or Madiba, as he is fondly known in Africa. In apartheid South Africa he was public enemy number one. Shrouded in secrecy, myth and rumour, the media called him 'The Black Pimpernel'.

I think touring in America lives up to the myth, in all ways of what touring is. So many pretty cities, and it's pretty easy, compared to touring other places. I'm fascinated by America. Great crowds - people are very musical. I've been getting better throughout the tour in America, relating to people. At the start I was a bit stiff, and I'm starting to relax.

There are many beliefs that we have seen as truth in Western civilization for hundreds of years. We live according to these "truths" and as a result manifesting a life using those beliefs, which can be very self-destructive. So these beliefs will affect decisions in economics and politics and everything else that we do. One myth-perception is our continued emphasis of a Newtonian materialistic world, which by definition emphasizes the primacy of matter and somewhat ignores or minimizes the influence of the immaterial part of the universe.

The balanced life is a goal, but for us it is mostly a myth.

It’s a strange myth that atheists have nothing to live for. It’s the opposite. We have nothing to die for. We have everything to live for.

Another study, of 38,000 knowledge workers across different sectors, found that the simple act of being interrupted is one of the biggest barriers to productivity. Even multitasking, that prized feat of modern-day office warriors, turns out to be a myth.

The rising productivity of labor is a myth, a statistical illusion created by measuring combined output in terms of labor input.

Today a new faith is stirring: the myth of blood, the faith that along with blood we are defending the divine nature of man as a whole.

It's a common myth that athletes and other highly active people need the protein from meat and dairy to fuel their activities and build and repair muscles and other bodily tissues. In fact, there is growing evidence that consumption of too much protein can lead to very serious health issues, including kidney disease, osteoporosis, and cancer. The active body can get all the protein it needs from a diverse, 100% plant-based diet.

I think it's a myth that one cannot leave any organization once you've entered one.

We have to be realistic about what we can achieve in Afghanistan. The notion that the United States can build a Western-style democracy there is a myth