“Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts.”
On the ideas of Sigmund Freud, p. 66.
Strong Opinions (1973)
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Vladimir Nabokov193
Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor 1899–1977Related quotes
“Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.”
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
“For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected.”
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien book The Monsters and the Critics
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936), p. 14
Context: The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet has done. Its defender is thus at a disadvantage: unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, he will kill what he is studying by vivisection, and he will be left with a formal or mechanical allegory, and what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected.
Hermann Hesse book Peter Camenzind
Variant translation: In the beginning was the myth. Just as the great god composed and struggled for expression in the souls of the Indians, the Greeks and Germanic peoples, so to it continues to compose daily in the soul of every child.
Peter Camenzind (1904)
“The [Greek] myths were… attempting—at a deeper level—to feel the intangible and say the unsayable.”
Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer
Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.VII The Way They Went: Greco-Roman Meets Judeo-Christian
John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States
February 2008 http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB120451614688707083.html <br class="br">2000s, 2008
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer
"We March Back to Olympus" in Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns (1977), p. 11
Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
"Credo" at his official website http://robertfulghum.com/index.php/fulghumweb/credo/; this may be partly influenced by remarks of Albert Einstein in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929): I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. <br class="br">Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher