A Quote by Michael Shermer

Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.

Michael Shermer

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Express Irrelevant Meaning Morality Motivation Myths Stories True Whether

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Michael Shermer
American - Writer
Born: September 8, 1954

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

Only meaning can make a difference and we all know there's no meaning. All stories express a desire for meaning, not meaning itself. Therefore any difference knowing the story makes is a delusion.

Glen Duncan

The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.

Matthew Arnold

The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.

Matthew Arnold

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

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

I think that obviously humans find it very difficult to believe that there is no there there. So they created these stories and myths to give their lives some meaning.

Sally Quinn

All my stories are like the Greek and Roman myths, and the Egyptian myths, and the Old and New Testament.

Ray Bradbury

Survival is for the human animal; fear the motivation. For the spiritual being survival is irrelevant. Curiosity, compassion and creativity are the name of the game; unconditional love the motivation.

Peter Shepherd

The more real things get, the more like myths they become. There have always been myths, but the myths of earlier times were, Im convinced, bad ones, because they made people sick. So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

I have always been fascinated by the supernatural elements in stories, whether fairy tales, myths, film or literature.

Trudi Canavan

True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

Blaise Pascal

Grammar, perfectly understood, enables us not only to express our meaning fully and clearly, but so to express it as to enable us to defy the ingenuity of man to give to our words any other meaning than that which we ourselves intend them to express.

William Cobbett

I think it's important for everyone to understand that if you have a background and culture... to really use that as motivation to fuel the fire. It brings meaning to what you do. It's not just sports - whether it's in the classroom, in the office or whatever it may be - it just brings passion and excitement out when there's meaning behind it.

Patty Mills

We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.

J. R. R. Tolkien

True art means if it helps you to become silent, still, joyous; if it gives you a celebration, if it makes you dance—whether anybody participates with you or not is irrelevant. If it becomes a bridge between you and God, that is true art. If it becomes a meditation, that is true art. If you become absorbed in it, so utterly absorbed that the ego disappears, that is true art.

Rajneesh

A Quote by Michael Shermer

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