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Mythology Quotes

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Mythology Quotes

“I know that you are wise. When you hear a true story, there is a part of you that responds to it regardless of art, regardless of evidence…You believe that the story is true, because you responded to it from that sense of truth deep within you. But that sense of truth does not respond to a story's factuality...[rather] to a story's causality - whether it faithfully shows the way the universe functions.”

“A woman has her Juno, just as a man has his Genius; they are names for the sacred power, the divine spark we each of us have in us. My Juno can't "get into" me, it is already my deepest self. The poet was speaking of Juno as if it were a person, a woman, with likes and dislikes: a jealous woman. The world is sacred, of course, it is full of gods, numina, great powers and presences. We give some of them names--Mars of the fields and the war, Vesta the fire, Ceres the grain, Mother Tellus the earth, the Penates of the storehouse. The rivers, the springs. And in the storm cloud and the light is the great power called the father god. But they aren't people. They don't love and hate, they aren't for or against. They accept the worship due them, which augments their power, through which we live.”

“Wolves are such a powerful example of sticking power. They teach us to see things through, approaching life, our projects, our relationships and growth with determination and passion. However, the wolf sees clearly and makes informed decisions. They know when a kill is not worth making, they know when it is better to say 'not this time'. They ask you to cleverly access and weigh up, listening and considering the perspectives of your mind, body and soul. They encourage you to ask 'does this really contribute to my soul's path, my heart's joy or the benefit of humanity?'" Rachel S Roberts, WOLF. An inpsirational Guide to embodying your inner Wolf.”

“Wisdom of the Wolf Pup: Know when you need to ask or receive help and surrender to it. Surrendering or letting go does not make you weak or deem you incapable but rather it is an act of honesty and trust. In many ways, like the pups, we are blind in this world and experience will open our eyes, but it is the alchemical transformation of knowledge into wisdom, via experience, that enables us to see. This takes time, patience, reflection, openness and allowance." Rachel S Roberts, WOLF. An inspirational guide to embodying your Inner Wolf.”

“Anubis is associated with the mummification and protection of the dead for their journeys through Denver International Airport to the afterlife. He is usually portrayed as being half human and half jackal, and holding a metal detector in his hand ... Anubis is employed by the Department of Homeland Security to examine the hearts of all travellers to make sure they have not exceeded the weight limit for psychological baggage ... He is also shown frisking mummies and confiscating firearms and other contraband. It doesn't take much to tip the scales in favour of a dead body cavity search or an afterlifetime travel ban.”

“The daughter of Sin was determined to go To the dark house, dwelling of Erkalla's god, To the house which those who enter cannot leave, On the road where travelling is one-way only, To the house where those who enter are deprived of light, Where dust is their food, clay their bread. They see no light, they dwell in darkness, They are clothed like birds, with feathers.”

“But is the unicorn a falsehood? It's the sweetest of animals and a noble symbol. It stands for Christ and for chastity; it can be captured only by setting a virgin in the forest, so that the animal, catching her most chaste odor, will go and lay its head in her lap, offering itself as prey to the hunters' snares." "So it is said, Adso. But many tend to believe that it's a fable, an invention of the pagans." "What a disappointment," I said. "I would have liked to encounter one, crossing a wood. Otherwise what's the pleasure of crossing a wood?”

“The fervor and single-mindedness of this deification probably have no precedent in history. It's not like Duvalier or Assad passing the torch to the son and heir. It surpasses anything I have read about the Roman or Babylonian or even Pharaonic excesses. An estimated $2.68 billion was spent on ceremonies and monuments in the aftermath of Kim Il Sung's death. The concept is not that his son is his successor, but that his son is his reincarnation. North Korea has an equivalent of Mount Fuji—a mountain sacred to all Koreans. It's called Mount Paekdu, a beautiful peak with a deep blue lake, on the Chinese border. Here, according to the new mythology, Kim Jong Il was born on February 16, 1942. His birth was attended by a double rainbow and by songs of praise (in human voice) uttered by the local birds. In fact, in February 1942 his father and mother were hiding under Stalin's protection in the dank Russian city of Khabarovsk, but as with all miraculous births it's considered best not to allow the facts to get in the way of a good story.”

“What kind of a moron demands his devotee to slaughter his son just to prove his loyalty! What kind of an alcoholic father sends his son to be tortured and nailed on a cross just to prove how much he cares! What kind of a pervert rescues his wife from her abductor only to abandon her, just so his reputation as the ideal king wouldn't be tarnished by a violated woman! Mythologies have nothing to do with holiness, nor with the actual creator of the cosmos, even if there is such a thing, at most they reflect the mindset and morality of their time.”

“Dogma not Divine, Myth not Holy (Sonnet 2430) What kind of a moron demands his devotee to slaughter his son just to prove his loyalty! What kind of an alcoholic father sends his son to be tortured and nailed on a cross just to prove how much he cares! What kind of a pervert rescues his wife from her abductor only to abandon her, just so his reputation as the ideal king wouldn't be tarnished by a violated woman! Mythologies have nothing to do with holiness, nor with the actual creator of the cosmos, even if there is such a thing, at most they reflect the mindset and morality of their time. I never had any interest in making a case for or against god, my struggle is far more real, against dogma disguised as divine.”

“At the last minute, he broke the rule and he looked. He was so rapt in his view of the light at the end of the tunnel, he got excited, tuned up, he got crazy nervous and for a second he wavered in his confidence and he looked! To confirm or affirm or just firm up,’ students laughing ‘his manly love for her and in that motion of divine stupidity, he killed her dead forever with a glance. Hades ripped her back into his den and that was, proverbially, that.’ A girl across from me says bitterly, ‘No second, second chance for Orpheus.’ ‘He was fucked,’ D continues, nodding. ‘Not because the gods were heartless, but because he fucked up. The guilt of that. Can you imagine? Spent the rest of his pathetic days wallowing, lamenting, composing (or was it decomposing?) heartbreaking tunes upon his lyre, dissolving in grief and music and art, never being the least bit happy or lovable. The saddest sap of all. How do we tell a story like that without being sappy? Oh woe! How do we shape into lines our most harrowing mistakes and losses without drenching them in sticky poetic sap?”

“She lifted one arm up, covering her forehead in a mock swoon. “You’re sweeping me off my feet.” He laughed, shocked by the sound after the shitty day they’d had. He bent his knees and cradled her in his arms, spinning her around while he drank in the magic of her giggles. Finally, he lowered her onto the bed and lay down beside her. “Now you’ve been swept.”

“I fear no hell, just as I expect no heaven. Nabokov summed up a nonbeliever’s view of the cosmos, and our place in it, thus: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” The 19th-century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle put it slightly differently: “One life. A little gleam of Time between two Eternities.” Though I have many memories to cherish, I value the present, my time on earth, those around me now. I miss those who have departed, and recognize, painful as it is, that I will never be reunited with them. There is the here and now – no more. But certainly no less. Being an adult means, as Orwell put it, having the “power of facing unpleasant facts.” True adulthood begins with doing just that, with renouncing comforting fables. There is something liberating in recognizing ourselves as mammals with some fourscore years (if we’re lucky) to make the most of on this earth. There is also something intrinsically courageous about being an atheist. Atheists confront death without mythology or sugarcoating. That takes courage.”

“So across the chaos, the Devil looks at God and falls deeply in love with Her. She looks at Him, and the same thing happens. They get married and have some children—first light, then the dry land, and all the trees, and so on and so forth. Last of all, She gives birth to Adam and Eve. They worship their mother, but not their father. He gets jealous. God and the Devil fight. They agree to split up. She gets to keep heaven, and He has to move in to hell. Then she talks bad about Him to their children, makes them hate Him.”

“Omeir shivers inside his oxhide cape and watches the river roar past, full of debris and foam, and remembers how Grandfather would say that the littles streams, high on the mountain, small enough to dam with your hand, would eventually join the river, and that the river, though quick and violent, was but a drop in the eye of the great Ocean that encircles all the lands of the world, and contains every dream everyone has ever dreamed.”

“To select only monuments supresses at one stroke the reality of the land and that of its people, it accounts for nothing of the present, that is, nothing historical, and as a consequence, the monuments themselves become undecipherable, therefore senseless. What is to be seen is thus constantly in the process of vanishing, and the Guide becomes, through an operation common to all mystifications, the very opposite of what it advertises, an agent of blindness.”

“The Calling by Stewart Stafford Lightning-scorched gravestones, Leave and follow infinity’s call, Spring off the edge of Flat Earth, Know not what lies there and fall. Silence licks and speaks in tongues, Darkness the ferryman leading on, Fingers caress, scraping skin curses, Talisman whispers the way is gone. Hit the bottom and scream out for air, Fill the lungs with each noxious gas, Decide to rest some in poisoned sleep, Nourish yourself in an extended fast. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”

“We remark, first, that in all ages, and especially in primitive philosophy, words such as being, essence, unity, good, have exerted an extraordinary influence over the minds of men. The meagreness or negativeness of their content has been in an inverse ratio to their power. They have become the forms under which all things were comprehended. There was a need or instinct in the human soul which they satisfied; they were not ideas, but gods, and to this new mythology the men of a later generation began to attach the powers and associations of the elder deities. The idea of good is one of those sacred words or forms of thought, which were beginning to take the place of the old mythology. It meant unity, in which all time and all existence were gathered up. It was the truth of all things, and also the light in which they shone forth, and became evident to intelligences human and divine. It was the cause of all things, the power by which they were brought into being. It was the universal reason divested of a human personality. It was the life as well as the light of the world, all knowledge and all power were comprehended in it. The way to it was through the mathematical sciences, and these too were dependent on it. To ask whether God was the maker of it, or made by it, would be like asking whether God could be conceived apart from goodness, or goodness apart from God.”

“We remembered it all. Not just the pain. Not just the deaths, but the joy, the laughter, the quiet moments of peace. The first kiss in a ruined orchard before the skies fell, before the world broke. The laughter shared between desperate missions. The quiet hours spent watching stars in a world too cruel to deserve them.”