Quotes about mythology

Behavior is imitated, then abstracted into play, formalized into drama and story, crystallized into myth and codified into religion—and only then criticized in philosophy, and provided, post-hoc, with rational underpinnings.

Myths and fictions accustom... people... to think in certain ways, to believe in... certain standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain rules. ...[T]hereby ...artificial instincts ...enable millions of strangers to cooperate ...This network of artificial instinct is ...'Culture'.

The various creation stories of ancient time were not scientific theories in any modern sense. They did not attempt to reveal anything new about the structures of the world; they aimed simply to remove the specter of the unknown from human imaginings.

Just because something had spawned a myth did not automatically mean it had to contain anything of substance.

Fashions change. Even in mythology.

It’s legend now, but legend is the smoke from the fire, and the wood that the fire consumes is the substance.

The [Greek] myths were... attempting—at a deeper level—to feel the intangible and say the unsayable.

Past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused, and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend.

Gods and wonders always appear, to attend the birth of kings.

Legends should stay legends; otherwise they just become history, when the natural course of things is the other way around, from history to legend.

Without proposing an evolutionary scheme for such types, it is safe to say that mythology represents the most archaic form of universe-maintenance, as indeed it represents the most archaic form of legitimation generally.

All legends have a base in fact.