A Quote by William Robertson Smith

But, strictly speaking, this mythology was no essential part of ancient religion, for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the worshippers.

William Robertson Smith

Quote Topics

Ancient Binding Essential Force G Force Had Mythology Part Religion Sacred Sanction Speaking Strictly Worshippers

Quote Author

William Robertson Smith
Scottish - Scientist
November 8, 1846 - March 31, 1894

Art is not a substitute religion: it is a religion (in the true sense of the word: 'binding back', 'binding' to the unknowable, transcending reason, transcendent being). But the church is no longer adequate as a means of affording experience of the transcendental, and of making religion real - and so art has been transformed from a means into the sole provider of religion: which means religion itself.

Gerhard Richter

Mythology is not religion. It may rather be regarded as the ancient substitute, the poetical counterpart, for dogmatic theology.

Augustus William Hare

If religion means primarily God-consciousness, or the realization of God both within and without, and secondarily a body of beliefs, tenets and dogmas, then, strictly speaking, there is but one religion in the world, for there is but one God.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Normally I didn’t see a great deal. I didn’t hear a great deal either. I didn’t pay attention. Strictly speaking I wasn’t there. Strictly speaking I believe I’ve never been anywhere.

Samuel Beckett

Worshippers aren't made when they see the enemy on the run, put to flight. The truth is, worshippers of God are made during dark, stormy nights. And how we respond to our storms determines just what kind of worshippers we are.

David Wilkerson

In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual.

William Robertson Smith

There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed. ... These things are so ancient within us that they're ground into each separate cell of our bodies... It's as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.

Frank Herbert

Love is a very ancient force, which served its purpose in its day but no longer is essential for the survival of the species.

Frank Herbert

Mythology may, in a real sense, be defined as other people's religion. And religion may, in a sense, be understood as popular misunderstanding of mythology. (8)

Joseph Campbell

Religion comes from the word 're' or again and 'ligare' meaning to bind or tie back. The purpose of religion is to unite the self with God or the creative force. Music, sacred spaces, and meaningful icons are the way we conjoin our minds with the transcendental.

Alex Grey

A one sentence definition of mythology? Mythology is what we call someone else's religion.

Joseph Campbell

Mythology is often defined as 'other peoples' religions', religion can be thought of as misinterpreted mythology.

Joseph Campbell

The disinterested imaginative core of mythology is what develops into literature, science, philosophy. Religion is applied mythology.

Northrop Frye

For black people in the western hemisphere, if you can't generate a mythology that creates models of heroism and power out of the mythology that you had, then that means that somehow the mythology you had was not only feeble and weak, but that you are ultimately a powerless people. That's a notion that, I think, that can't be accepted.

Kerry James Marshall

The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic religion gives strong sanction to both-and mixes explosively with both. Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today.