“The scapegoat upon whom the sins of the people are periodically laid, may also be a human being.”
Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 57, Public Scapegoats.
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James Frazer 50
Scottish social anthropologist 1854–1941Related quotes

[Thus Spake the Holy Mother, 72-73]

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Detachment (1947), p. 260

“People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.”
Source: As I Lay Dying (1930)

Reported in Proceedings in honor of Mr. Justice Frankfurter and distinguished alumni at the meeting of the Council, Harvard Law School Association in Cambridge, April 30, 1960.
Other writings

At the conclusion of his speech on Indian tradition he recited a passage from Matsyapurana, quoted in "Jayachamaraja Wodeyar – A Princely scholar".

“I know but of one Being to whom error may not be imputed.”
Rex v. Lambert and Perry (1810), 2 Camp. 402.

Also quoted in Nelson Mandela: from freedom to the future: tributes and speeches (2003), edited by Kader Asmal & David Chidester. Jonathan Ball, p. 332
1990s, Speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (1992)
Context: Yes! We affirm it and we shall proclaim it from the mountaintops, that all people – be they black or white, be they brown or yellow, be they rich or poor, be they wise or fools, are created in the image of the Creator and are his children! Those who dare to cast out from the human family people of a darker hue with their racism! Those who exclude from the sight of God's grace, people who profess another faith with their religious intolerance! Those who wish to keep their fellow countrymen away from God's bounty with forced removals! Those who have driven away from the altar of God people whom He has chosen to make different, commit an ugly sin! The sin called Apartheid.

Source: Beatrice & Virgil (2010), p. 23
Context: Colonialism is a terrible bane for a people upon whom it is imposed, but a blessing for a language. English's drive to exploit the new and the alien, its zeal in robbing words from other languages, its incapacity to feel qualms over the matter, its museum-size overabundance of vocabulary, its shoulder-shrug approach to spelling, its don't-worry-be-happy concern for grammar—the result was a language whose colour and wealth Henry loved. In his entirely personal experience of [languages], English was jazz music, German was classical music, French was ecclesiastical music, and Spanish was music from the streets. Which is to say, stab his heart and it would bleed French, slice his brain open and its convolutions would be lined with English and German, and touch his hands and they would feel Spanish.