Sacred Stories Quotes

The worlds of folklore and religion were so mingled in early twentieth venture German culture that even families who didn't go to church were often deeply Christian.

The Bible is a collection of honorable, but primitive legends which are still nevertheless pretty childish.

I noticed that some of my deadness was being replaced by an intense feeling about the Greek stories and the Bible stories. They were similar. There was something naked about these stories. Terrible things happened, and then some more terrible things.

Folklore provides a socially sanctioned outlet for the discussion of the forbidden and taboo.

Without a mythology, faith is impersonal and heartless.

The Bible represents a fundamental guidepost for millions of people on the planet, in much the same way the Koran, Torah, and Pali Canon offer guidance to people of other religions. If you and I could dig up documentation that contradicted the holy stories of Islamic belief, Judaic belief, Buddhist belief, pagan belief, should we do that? Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.

Christianity, of course, but why journalism?

I believe God is a poet; every religion in our history was made of poems and songs, and not a few of them had books attached.

The Old Testament contains fabulous elements. The New Testament consists mostly of teaching, not of narrative at all: but where it is narrative, it is, in my opinion, historical. As to the fabulous element in the Old Testament, I very much doubt if you would be wise to chuck it out.

If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men.

One may as well preach a respectable mythology as anything else.

Mythology is a subjective truth. Every culture imagines life a certain way.

I write on sacred stories, symbols and rituals of all cultures - European, American and Chinese - but my audiences, typically, like me to focus on India.

Christmas is a story that has both religious and pagan origins, and to ignore its power is to ignore the power of myth - those symbols and legends that help us to ground our lives.

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

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)

I've been transformed by stories, and I think that storytelling is definitely sacred. I take it very seriously because my life has been changed, whether it was a movie, a play, a piece of writing, poetry, a painting.

We should consider the histories of Christ three manner of ways; first, as a history of acts or legends; second, as a gift or a present; thirdly, as an example, which we should believe and follow.

That's what the leadership was teaching me, day by day: that the self-interest I was supposed to be looking for extended well beyond the immediacy of issues, that beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions, people carried with them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of terror and wonder, studded with events that still haunted or inspired them. Sacred stories.