Myth Quotes - Page 37

• From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not.

  Diane Wakoski

  Reading, Answers, Literature

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• When we think of his lone effort to live and its bleak reward, the mind turns to the myth "for His mercy endureth forever," with confiding revulsion.

  Emily Dickinson

  Thinking, Forever, Effort

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.2349, Delphi Classics

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• Homo religiosus invents religious symbols, which he venerates and worships to save him from facing the finality of his death and dissolution. He devises paradise fictions to provide succor and support... In acts of supreme self-deception, at various times and in various places he has been willing to profess belief in the most incredible myths because of what they have promised him.

  Paul Kurtz

  Religious, Self, Support

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• The Christ is a myth. The Holy Ghost Priestcraft overshadowed the harlot Superstition; this Christ was born; and the Joseph of humanity, beguiled by the Gabriel of credulity, was induced to support the family. But the soldiers of Reason have crucified the illegitimate impostor, he is dead; and the ignorant disciples and hysterical women who still linger about the cross should take his body down and bury it.

  John Remsburg

  Support, Soldier, Humanity

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• When we say the South lost the Civil War, we mean the white South. The blacks were liberated. And it's trying to redefine this Southern myth and bring it in a more positive direction.

  William R. Ferris

  War, Mean, White

  "Confederate Flag Debate Symbolizes Rapid Change In The South". "All Things Considered" with Rachel Martin, www.npr.org. June 23, 2015.

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• Peter Watts has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a shocking and mesmerizing performance, a tour-de-force of provocative and often alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course. Blindsight is such a book.

  Karl Schroeder

  Book, Taken, Ideas

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• A third myth is that men think that women like guys who are dangerous. As a result, guys will often smoke cigarettes, drink too much, and ride a motorcycle without a helmet. The reality? Women don't like guys who are dangerous. Women want us to think that because women are trying to kill us.

  Dennis Miller

  Reality, Men, Thinking

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• Perhaps the greatest myth being purveyed,
  is that myths are just myths.

  Michael Tsarion

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

  Northrop Frye

  Strong, Romance, Fiction

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• The fall [of your soul] from perfection into duality...was naturally followed by the discovery of the duality of good and evil...This is the Biblical version of a myth known to many lands.

  Joseph Campbell

  Fall, Biblical, Discovery

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• The nation, like the church, has its visible symbols and insignia, its parchments engrossed with the revealed word, its dogmas, hymns, liturgy, holy day celebrations, its early Fathers, prophets and martyrs, its priesthood and its lay sodality, its myths of sacred genesis and apocalyptic crises, its world-saving mission and its missionaries.

  Michael Parenti

  Father, Hymns, Holy Days

  Michael Parenti (1970). “The Anti-communist Impulse”

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• A brilliant analysis of leadership in democratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian states, Archie Brown's The Myth of the Strong Leader draws on a remarkably wide range of examples and is distinguished by the relevance of its insights and by the precision and clarity of their exposition. It is an absorbing read that deserves to become a modern classic of political thinking.

  Jack F. Matlock, Jr.

  Strong, Thinking, Leader

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• Heraldry is the fusion of fact and fancy, myth and manner, romance and reality. It is an exuberant union of family, art, and history.

  Charles Burnett

  Art, Reality, Romance

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• Looking back over a decade one sees the ideal of a university become a myth, a vision, a meadow lark among the smoke stacks. Yet perhaps it is there at Princeton, only more elusive than under the skies of the Prussian Rhineland or Oxfordshire; or perhaps some men come upon it suddenly and possess it, while others wander forever outside. Even these seek in vain through middle age for any corner of the republic that preserves so much of what is fair, gracious, charming and honorable in American life.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Education, College, Men

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• Nothing endures unless it has first been transposed into a myth, and the great advantage of myths is that they are ladies with portable roots.

  Anais Nin

  Roots, Firsts, Advantage

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• All systems require myths for their longevity.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Longevity

  Nikki Giovanni (1988). “Sacred cows-- and other edibles”, William Morrow & Co

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• We're going to have to debunk the myth that Africa is a heaven for black people -- especially black women. We've been the mule of the world there and the mule of the world here.

  Alice Walker

  People, Heaven, Black

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• Myths hook and bind the mind because at the same time they set the mind free: they explain the universe while allowing the universe to go on being unexplained; and we seem to need this even now, in our twentieth-century grandeur.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Mind, Needs, Hook

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• Folklore is the boiled-down juice, or pot-likker, of human living.

  Zora Neale Hurston

  Juice, Pot, Folklore

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• A myth is more powerful - and more lasting - than reality.

  Gloria Naylor

  Powerful, Reality, Lasting

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• As long as the family and the myth of the family ... have not been destroyed, women will still be oppressed.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Long, Stills, Oppressed

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• The great myth of our work-intense era is 'quality time.' We believe we can make up for the loss of days or hours, especially with each other, by concentrated minutes. But ultimately there is no way to do one-minute mothering. There is no way to pay attention in a hurry.

  Ellen Goodman

  Time, Believe, Loss

  Ellen Goodman (1990). “Making Sense”, Penguin Group USA

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• The first kiss ideally signals rapture, exchange of hearts, and imminent marriage. Otherwise it is a kiss that lies. All very crude and nonsensical, and yet it is the staple myth of hundreds of comics called 'Sweethearts,' 'Romantic Secrets' and so forth. The state induced by the kiss is actually self-induced, of course, for few lips are so gifted with electric and psychedelic possibilities.

  Germaine Greer

  Lying, Heart, Kissing

  Germaine Greer (1972). “The female eunuch”

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• the unconscious of an artist is her greatest treasure. It is what transmutes the dross of autobiography into the gold of myth.

  Erica Jong

  Artist, Greatest Treasure, Gold

  Erica Jong (2007). “What Do Women Want?: Essays by Erica Jong”, p.53, Penguin

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• the more a body tries to explode all the foolish myths that have grown up about Texas by telling the truth, the more a body will wind up adding to the mythology.

  Molly Ivins

  Texas, Wind, Trying

  Molly Ivins (2010). “Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?”, p.3, Vintage

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