A Quote by James Hillman

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

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Quote Author

James Hillman
American - Psychologist
April 12, 1926 - October 27, 2011

It's only recently that I've come to understand that writers are not marginal to our society, that they, in fact, do all our thinking for us, that we are writing myths and our myths are believed, and that old myths are believed until someone writes a new one.

Kurt Vonnegut

A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence. Whether the meaning of existence is only what we put into life by our own individual fortitude, as Sartre would hold, or whether there is a meaning we need to discover, as Kierkegaard would state, the result is the same: myths are our way of finding this meaning and significance.

Rollo May

I think we're always in the process of writing and rewriting the story of our lives, forming our experiences into a narrative that makes sense. Much of that work involves demythologizing family myths and cultural myths - getting free of what we have been told about ourselves.

Sam Keen

Over the centuries we have transformed the ancient myths and folk tales and made them into the fabric of our lives. Consciously and unconsciously we weave the narratives of myth and folk tale into our daily existence.

Jack Zipes

I think of evolution as a myth, like the Norse myths, the Greek myths - anybody's myths. But it was created for a rational age.

Tom Wolfe

In the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.

Salman Rushdie

No, the secret is that there's no reward and we have to endure our characters and our natures as best we can, because no amount of experience or insight is going to rectify our deficiencies, our self-regard, or our cupidity. We have to learn that our desires do not find any real echo in the world. We have to accept that the people we love do not love us, or not in the way we hope. We have to accept betrayal and disloyalty, and, hardest of all, that someone is finer than we are in character or intelligence.

Sándor Márai

Since the purpose of reading, of education, is to become good, our most important task is to choose the right books. Our personal set of stories, our canon, shapes our lives. I believe it is a law of the universe that we will not rise above our canon. Our canon is part of us, deeply, subconsciously. And the characters and teachings in our canon shape our characters--good, evil, mediocre, or great.

Oliver DeMille

We still like to make up stories, just as our ancestors did, which use personification to explain the great forces of our existence. Such stories, which explain how the world began or where the sun goes when it sets, we call myths. Mythology is a natural product of the symbolizing mind; poets, when not making up myths of their own, are still commanding ancient ones.

John Frederick Nims

A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.

Rollo May

Myths are the prototype for all stories. When we write a story on our own it can't help but link up with all sorts of myths. Myths are like a reservoir containing every story there is.

Haruki Murakami

Think of a single word. We'll use soul as our example. How do you define soul? Is it the same definition I use? Can it ever be it? My soul is not your soul. Our souls, our definitions, are shaped by the singular and cumulative experiences in our lives, the emotional weight we attach to a concept forever locked in the space behind our own eyes.

Chris Kluwe

It's not about superheroes. This is the method of universal storytelling that all people have... To me, they're the same as the Greek myths or the Roman myths or religious figures of every religion. These are common characters that we use to express stories about being a better person or what you would do when faced with various things.

Patty Jenkins

Our myths are so many, our vision so dim, our self-deception so deep and our smugness so gross that scarcely any way now remains of reporting the American Century except from behind the billboards.

Nelson Algren

Everything that's really worthwhile in life came to us free - our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love of family and children and friends and country.

Earl Nightingale

We've lost touch with our souls. We've been nourishing our minds, our relational skills, our theological knowledge, our psychological well-being, our physiological health... but we've abandoned our souls.

Mike Yaconelli

A Quote by James Hillman

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