James Frazer: Quotes about religion

James Frazer was Scottish social anthropologist. Explore interesting quotes on religion.
James Frazer: 100   quotes 1   like

“By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 4, Magic and Religion.

Life , Religion , Understanding , Nature

“Indeed the influence of music on the development of religion is a subject which would repay a sympathetic study.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 31, Adonis in Cyprus.

Religion , Music , Study

“If in the present work I have dwelt at some length on the worship of trees, it is not, I trust, because I exaggerate its importance in the history of religion, still less because I would deduce from it a whole system of mythology; it is simply because I could not ignore the subject in attempting to explain the significance of a priest who bore the title of King Of the Wood, and one of whose titles to office was the plucking of a bough — the Golden Bough”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

from a tree in the sacred grove.
Preface, 1 Brick Court Temple, London, June 1922.
The Golden Bough (1890)

Religion , History , Tree

“For there are strong grounds for thinking that, in the evolution of thought, magic has preceded religion.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 3, Sympathetic Magic.

Religion , Thinking , Strong

“Ancient magic was the very foundation of religion.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 4, Magic and Religion

Religion