“Small minds cannot grasp great ideas; to their narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing seems really great and important but themselves.”
― James George Frazer, quote from The Golden Bough
“For extending its sway, partly by force of arms, partly by the voluntary submission of weaker tribes, the community soon acquires wealth and slaves, both of which, by relieving some classes from the perpetual struggle for a bare subsistence, afford them an opportunity of devoting themselves to that disinterested pursuit of knowledge which is the noblest and most powerful instrument to ameliorate the lot of man.”
― James George Frazer, quote from The Golden Bough
“For strength of character in the race as in the individual consists mainly in the power of sacrificing the present for the future, of disregarding the immediate temptations of ephemeral pleasure for more distant and lasting sources of satisfaction. The more the power is exercised the higher and stronger becomes the character; till the height of heroism is reached in men who renounce the pleasures of life and even life itself for the sake of winning for others, perhaps in distant ages, the blessings of freedom and truth.”
― James George Frazer, quote from The Golden Bough
“the fear of the human dead, which, on the whole, I believe to have been probably the most powerful force in the making of primitive religion.”
― James George Frazer, quote from The Golden Bough
“So in Scotland witches used to raise the wind by dipping a rag in water and beating it thrice on a stone, saying: “I knok this rag upone this stane To raise the wind in the divellis name, It sall not lye till I please againe.”
― James George Frazer, quote from The Golden Bough
“Thus religion, beginning as a slight and partial acknowledgment of powers superior to man, tends with the growth of knowledge to deepen into a confession of man’s entire and absolute dependence on the divine; his old free bearing is exchanged for an attitude of lowliest prostration before the mysterious powers of the unseen, and his highest virtue is to submit his will to theirs: In la sua volontade è nostra pace.”
― James George Frazer, quote from The Golden Bough
“legend ascribed to the Tauric Diana is familiar to classical readers;”
― James George Frazer, quote from The Golden Bough
“THE PRIMARY aim of this book is to explain the remarkable rule which regulated the succession to the priesthood of Diana at Aricia.”
― James George Frazer, quote from The Golden Bough
“fear of the human dead, which, on the whole, I believe to have been probably the most powerful force in the making of primitive religion.”
― James George Frazer, quote from The Golden Bough
James George Frazer
Born place: in Glasgow, The United Kingdom
Born date January 1, 1854
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“They all had them. Secrets. But some stank more than others.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Glass Houses
“Looking at the rich and powerful was dangerous, like peering into the sun.”
― Frances Hardinge, quote from A Skinful of Shadows
“We live only in the present, in this fleet-footed moment. The rest is lost and behind us, or ahead of us and may never be found. Little of life we know, little the plot of earth on which we dwell, little the memory of even the most famous who have lived, and this memory itself is preserved by generations of little men, who know little about themselves and far less about those who died long ago.”
― Marcus Aurelius, quote from The Emperor's Handbook
“That said, certain episodes here are true—that is, taken from life. The accident actually happened to me. I didn’t see the taxi coming. The possibility of a suicidal impulse was invented for the sake of the story. In fact, the question has haunted me for a long time: Does life have meaning after Auschwitz? In a universe cursed because it is guilty, is hope still possible? For a young survivor whose knowledge of life and death surpasses that of his elders, wouldn’t suicide be as great a temptation as love or faith?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“Do we have a plan?”
“A couple.” Jim said.
“Either of them good?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. Just different flavors of terrible.”
― quote from Babylon's Ashes
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