“Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves…" by Langston Hughes?

Langston Hughes79

American writer and social activist 1902–1967

Related quotes

“But our captain counts the image of God—nevertheless his image—cut in ebony as if done in ivory, and in the blackest Moors he sees the representation of the King of Heaven.”

Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) English churchman and historian

The Good Sea-Captain.
The Holy State and the Profane State (1642)

“Some people say that without God, people would give themselves permission to do anything. [Yet] only with God, only with the view that God’s on your side, can people give themselves permission to do things that otherwise would be called satanic.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Freedom From Religion Foundation, 21/10/2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6WByhz44EA&t=4m25s <br class="br">2000s, 2007

“I know I'm not God, are you? Don't be silly.
God? God? Everybody's God? Don't be silly.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Source: Death and Fame: Last Poems, 1993-1997

“A puppet of the Gods is a tragic figure, a puppet suspended on his chromosomes is merely grotesque.”

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) Hungarian-British author and journalist

Epilogue
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959)
Context: The uomo universale of the Renaissance, who was artist and craftsman, philosopher and inventor, humanist and scientist, astronomer and monk, all in one, split up into his component parts. Art lost its mythical, science its mystical inspiration; man became again deaf to the harmony of the spheres. The Philosophy of Nature became ethically neutral, and "blind" became the favourite adjective for the working of natural law. The space-spirit hierarchy was replaced by the space-time continuum.... man's destiny was no longer determined from "above" by a super-human wisdom and will, but from "below" by the sub-human agencies of glands, genes, atoms, or waves of probability.... they could determine his fate, but could provide him with no moral guidance, no values and meaning. A puppet of the Gods is a tragic figure, a puppet suspended on his chromosomes is merely grotesque.