Myth Quotes - Page 25

• There's always someone who secretly believes in myths and legends; or at least parts of them. Those are the people who will look beyond the obvious and see things in this world that are truly wonderful... But they won't say anything, even if they do. Because the rest of us who view the world as logical and scientific wouldn't see the truth if it was posted up on a billboard.

  Aprilynne Pike

  Life, Believe, Views

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• If we only arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Courage, Princess, Race

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• The myth of the inevitability of economic globalization is based largely on the work of Milton Friedman, and easily the most underreported story of our time is that the current economy proves Friedman flatly wrong.

  Molly Ivins

  Economic Globalization, Stories, Libertarian

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• Markets are interested in profits and profits only; service, quality, and general affluence are different functions altogether. The universal, democratic prosperity that Americans now look back to with such nostalgia was achieved only by a colossal reigning in of markets, by the gargantuan effort of mass, popular organizations like labor unions and of the people themselves, working through a series of democratically elected governments not daunted by the myths of the market.

  Thomas Frank

  Government, Organization, People

  "One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy". Book by Thomas Frank, 2000.

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• Mexico was conquered more by manipulation of myth and archetype.

  Norman Spinrad

  Mexico, Manipulation, Archetype

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• There is a city myth that country life was isolated and lonely; the truth is that farmers and their families then had a richer social life than they have now. They enjoyed a society organic, satisfying and whole, not mixed and thinned with the life of town, city and nation as it now is.

  Rose Wilder Lane

  Country, Lonely, Cities

  Rose Wilder Lane (1985). “Old Home Town”, p.1, U of Nebraska Press

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• The myth that men are the economic providers and women, mainly, are mothers and care givers in the family has now been thoroughly refuted. This family pattern has never been the norm, except in a narrow middle-class segment.

  Gro Harlem Brundtland

  Mother, Men, Class

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• Economists and workplace consultants regard it as almost unquestioned dogma that people are motivated by rewards, so they don't feel the need to test this. It has the status more of religious truth than scientific hypothesis. The facts are absolutely clear. There is no question that in virtually all circumstances in which people are doing things in order to get rewards, extrinsic tangible rewards undermine intrinsic motivation.The bonus myth: How paying for results can backfire The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

  Albert Einstein

  Religious, Motivation, Knowledge

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• There are some disabling myths about what art is, how to do it, what is good art, and what art is for, that have gagged generations, depriving them of significant and natural means of expression. This is a terrible loss and an unnecessary one.

  Peter London

  Wise, Art, Mean

  Peter London (1989). “No More Secondhand Art”, p.11, Shambhala Publications

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• PEOPLE DIE.
  This is the fact the world desperately hides from us from birth. Long after you find out the truth about sex and Santa Claus, this other myth endures, this one about how you’ll always get rescued at the last second and if not, your death will at least mean something and there’ll be somebody there to hold your hand and cry over you. All of society is built to prop up that lie, the whole world a big, noisy puppet show meant to distract us from the fact that at the end, you’ll die, and you’ll probably be alone.

  David Wong

  Sex, Lying, Mean

  David Wong (2011). “John Dies at the End”, p.133, Titan Books

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• Nobody brings ancient history and archaeology to life like Adrienne Mayor. From the Russian steppes to China, and from Roman Egypt and Arabia to the Etruscans, she leads the reader on a breathtaking quest for the real ancient warrior women reflected in myths--their daring, archery, tattoos, fine horses, and independence from male control. The book's rich erudition, communicated in sparkling prose and beautiful illustrations, makes it a riveting read.

  Edith Hall

  Tattoo, Beautiful, Horse

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• Intellectual freedom is essential -- freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship.

  Andrei Sakharov

  Freedom, Hypocrite, Hands

  Andrei D. Sakharov (1968). “Progress, coexistence, and intellectual freedom”

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• I'm drawn to characters who bear similarities to the protagonists in myths and legends. (...)

  Alan Lee

  Character, Legends, Bears

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• They do not depend upon mere legends and myths. They are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races.

  Hirohito

  Race, People, Legends

  Address denying his divinity, 1 Jan. 1946

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• It helps to regard soul as an active intelligence, forming and plotting each person's fate. Translators use "plot" to render the ancient Greek word mythos in English. The plots that entangle our souls and draw forth our characters are the great myths. That is why we need a sense of myth and knowledge of different myths to gain insight into our epic struggles, our misalliances, and our tragedies. Myths show the imaginative structures inside our messes, and our human characters can locate themselves against the background of the characters of myth.

  James Hillman

  Struggle, Character, Fate

  James Hillman (2012). “The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life”, p.11, Ballantine Books

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• Just as the introduction of the irrational numbers ... is a convenient myth [which] simplifies the laws of arithmetic ... so physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of existence... The conceptional scheme of physical objects is [likewise] a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Math, Numbers, Law

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• I have yet to encounter that common myth of weak men, an insurmountable barrier.

  James Lane Allen

  Power, Men, Weak Man

  James Lane Allen (2005). “The Choir Invisible”, p.30, 1st World Publishing

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• To be an American (unlike being English or French or whatever) is precisely to imagine a destiny rather than to inherit one; since we have always been, insofar as we are Americans at all, inhabitants of myth rather than history.

  Leslie Fiedler

  Destiny, America, Imagine

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• There's so much myth and baloney. Like a 80-year-old man able to manhandle a 300-pounder with his little finger. Ridiculous. Or this matter of breaking bricks and boards wth the edge of your hand. Now I ask you, did you ever see a brick or a board pick a fight with anybody?

  Bruce Lee

  Fighting, Men, Hands

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• The idea of a liberal media bias is simply a myth. If only it were true, we might have a more humane, open-minded, and ultimately effective public debate on the issues facing the country.

  Barbra Streisand

  Country, Media, Ideas

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• It is difficult to separate, at times, the myth from the truth.

  Bob Kane

  Separation, Difficult

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• 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.

  Maurice Hayes

  Wall, Moving, White

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• That image of the common drunk is a myth. There is a thing called a maintenance drinker which may very well be a mother of four, a welder or a distinguished business person. These people build up a tolerance and manage to still maintain their daily lifestyles while constantly struggling with this disease, because it is a recognized disease by the American Medical Association.

  Lisa Anderson

  Mother, Struggle, People

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• There's an elegiac quality in watching [American wilderness] go, because it's our own myth, the American frontier, that's deteriorating before our eyes. I feel a deep sorrow that my kids will never get to see what I've seen, and their kids will see nothing; there's a deep sadness whenever I look at nature now.

  Peter Matthiessen

  Eye, Sadness, Kids

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• Kill off the sacred bear. Kill off the ancestral crocodile. Kill off the myth-wrapped tiger. Kill off the lion. You haven't conquered a people, or their place, until you've exterminated their resident monsters.

  David Quammen

  People, Monsters, Lions

  David Quammen (2004). “Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind”, p.254, W. W. Norton & Company

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