Ancient 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.” quote by William Robertson Smith — Download Open image

“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

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The god, it would appear, was frequently thought of as the physical progenitor or first father of his people.

William Robertson Smith

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Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men;…

William Robertson Smith

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In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford…

William Robertson Smith

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It is only in times of social dissolution, as in the last age of the small Semitic states, when men and their gods were alike powerless before the advance of the Assyrians, that magical superstitions based on mere terror, or rites designed to conciliate alien gods, invade the sphere of tribal or national religion. In better times the religion of…

William Robertson Smith

In better times the religion of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that…

William Robertson Smith

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This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the prominent place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific…

William Robertson Smith

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The god can no more exist without his people than the nation without its god.

William Robertson Smith

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Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile…

William Robertson Smith

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Belief in a certain series of myths was neither obligatory as a part of the true religion, nor was it supposed that, by believing,…

William Robertson Smith

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We are so accustomed to think of religion as a thing between individual men and God that we can hardly enter into the idea…

William Robertson Smith

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But if it not be true, the myth itself requires to be explained, and every principle of philosophy and common sense demand that the…

William Robertson Smith

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This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis... only of that force of precedent which in all times has been so…

William Robertson Smith

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More Ancient quotes

“We ought to know the history of our ancient ancestors.”

Lailah Gifty Akita

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In ancient times, those who wished to illuminate the world with virtue first brought order to their nations. Wishing to order well their nations, they first harmonized their families. Wishing to harmonize their families, they first cultivated themselves. Wishing to cultivate themselves, they first rectified their minds. Those who wished to rectify their minds first made their intentions sincere.

Confucius

Ancient eyes had stared at me, filled with ancient grief. And something more. Something so alien and unexpected that I'd almost burst into tears. I'd seen many things in his eyes in the time that I'd known him: lust, amusement, sympathy, mockery, caution, fury. But I had never seen this. Hope. Jericho Barrons had hope, and I was the reason…

Karen Marie Moning

I don't know if I've come of age, but I'm certainly older now. I feel shrunken, as if there's a tiny ancient Oliver Tate inside me operating the levers of a life-size Oliver-shaped shell. A shell on which a decrepit picture show replays the same handful of images. Every night I come to the same place and wait till the…

Joe Dunthorne

Tentatively I stood a great lump of wood on the chopping block and bought the axe down on it. It flew into two perfect halves. Such was my elation that I ran inside, put on our ancient cracked record of Aretha Franklin singing Respect and danced all by myself for half an hour in our living room, without inhibition, almost…

Helen Garner

Men must speak English who can write Sanskrit; they must speak a modern language who write, perchance, an ancient and universal one.

Henry David Thoreau

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The Tao is the center of the universe, the good man's treasure, the bad man's refuge. Honors can be bought with fine words, respect can be won with good deeds; but the Tao is beyond all value, and no one can achieve it. Thus, when a new leader is chosen, don't offer to help him with your wealth or your…

Laozi

So too, monks, I saw the ancient path, the ancient road traveled by the Perfectly Enlightened Ones of the past. And what is that…

Gautama Buddha

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Ancient societies had anthropomorphic gods: a huge pantheon expanding into centuries of dynastic drama; fathers and sons, martyred heroes, star-crossed lovers, the deaths of…

Tom Hiddleston

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My life shall be free and broad and great, and I will not be the slave to the sense delights which chained my ancient…

Jack London

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Those of us with this ancient compulsion to tell stories sometimes start with a single kernel of something.

Edward P. Jones

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All the stories I have told you are finally as useless as all ancient knowledge is to man and to us. Its images and its poetry can be beautiful; it can make us shiver with the recognition of things we have always suspected or felt. It can draw us back to times when the earth was new to man, and…

Anne Rice

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Ancient Quote by William Robertson Smith

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