“there is no ascent to the heights without prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death.”
Source: A Short History of Myth
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Karen Armstrong 56
author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain 1944Related quotes
“Human life without some form of poetry is not human life but animal existence.”
"The Obscurity of the Poet", p. 16
Poetry and the Age (1953)

“One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life.”
Source: The Story of My Life (1932), Ch. 1 "Before The Beginning"
Context: One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life. As one journeys along he gains experiences and even some ideas. Accumulated opinions and philosophy may be more important to others than the bare facts about how he lived, so my ambition is not so much to relate the occurrences as to record the ideas that life has forced me to accept; and, after all, thoughts, impressions and feelings are really life itself. I should like to think that these reflections might make existence a trifle easier for some of those who may chance to read this story.

“There is no death without life. Therefore, death depends entirely on life.”
Source: 1970s, Complex organizations, 1972, p. 5; Talking about bureaucracy

As quoted in Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review by ? Vol. IV, No. 8 (1847) by Dallas Theological Seminary, p. 107
“The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life without a purpose.”