Pagan Gods Quotes

If we turn now to such vestiges of cult as are associated otherwise than with time and season, we discover a definite recognition of the survival of these nearly a century ago. Keightley, the old fairy mythologist, who did such yeoman service in the collection of much valuable elfin lore, says, as long ago as 1850, when referring to the confused nature of his subject: 'Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings (the larger and greater fairies) once formed part of ancient and exploded systems of religion and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved. ~ Lewis Spence

We are here to witness. There is nothing else to do with those mute materials we do not need. Until Larry teaches his stone to talk, until God changes his mind, or until the pagan gods slip back to their hilltop groves, all we can do with the whole inhuman array is watch it. ~ Annie Dillard

We have only faith to guide us, say the theologians. Which faith? It is my acceptance that what we call evidence, and whatever we think we mean by intuition and faith are the phenomena of eras, and that the best of minds, or minds best in rapport with the dominant motif of an era, have intuition and faith and belief that depend upon what is called evidence, relatively to pagan gods, then to the god of the christians, and then to godlessness - and then to whatever is coming next. . . . . If now, affairs upon this earth be fluttering upon the edge of a new era, and I give expression to coming thoughts of that era, thousands of other minds are changing, and all of us will take on new thoughts concordantly, and see, as important evidence, piffle of the past. CHARLES FORT, LO! ~ Whitley Strieber

This brings me to the question of the antiquity of the belief in fairies and to the associated problem of the existence of strata or stages in fairy belief. The antiquity of the belief is revealed by the wide distribution of tales concerning fairies, while it is also indicated by the antipathy of the elves to iron and salt - ancient taboos both. Not only so, but many traits respecting fairies, especially shape-shifting and the belief in their semi-corporeal state, are eloquent of primitive notions. That the process of the fairy belief witnessed more than one stage of development in the course of successive ages appears more than probable. 'The fairies of one race,' remarks Wentz, 'are the people of the preceding race.' If this statement lacks a certain precision, one realizes the implication; that is, that the ghosts or gods of a preceding race may come to be regarded by their successors as fairies. ~ Lewis Spence

I should add, however, that, particularly on the occasion of Samhain, bonfires were lit with the express intention of scaring away the demonic forces of winter, and we know that, at Bealltainn in Scotland, offerings of baked custard were made within the last hundred and seventy years to the eponymous spirits of wild animals which were particularly prone to prey upon the flocks - the eagle, the crow, and the fox, among others. Indeed, at these seasons all supernatural beings were held in peculiar dread. It seems by no means improbable that these circumstances reveal conditions arising out of a later solar pagan worship in respect of which the cult of fairy was relatively greatly more ancient, and perhaps held to be somewhat inimical. ~ Lewis Spence

Gay men are guardians of the masculine impulse. To have anonymous sex in a dark alleyway is to pay homage to the dream of male freedom. The unknown stranger is a wandering pagan god. The altar, as in pre-history, is anywhere you kneel. ~ Camille Paglia

From the cave to the skyscraper, from the club to weapons of mass destruction, from the tautological life of the tribe to the era of globalization, the fictions of literature have multiplied human experiences, preventing us from succumbing to lethargy, self-absorption, resignation. Nothing has sown so much disquiet, so disturbed our imagination and our desires as the life of lies we add, thanks to literature, to the one we have, so we can be protagonists in the great adventures, the great passions real life will never give us. The lies of literature become truths through us, the readers transformed, infected with longings and, through the fault of fiction, permanently questioning a mediocre reality. Sorcery, when literature offers us the hope of having what we do not have, being what we are not, acceding to that impossible existence where like pagan gods we feel mortal and eternal at the same time, that introduces into our spirits non-conformity and rebellion, which are behind all the heroic deeds that have contributed to the reduction of violence in human relationships. Reducing violence, not ending it. Because ours will always be, fortunately, an unfinished story. That is why we have to continue dreaming, reading, and writing, the most effective way we have found to alleviate our mortal condition, to defeat the corrosion of time, and to transform the impossible into possibility. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa

Abject fear of pagan gods is little different from abject worship of them. ~ Gene Edward Veith Jr.

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything. ~ George Gordon Byron

The Doxology ... that testimonial to the Platonic Trinity, which divided the Roman Empire into at least eighteen quarreling sects, none of whom knew what they were fighting about, and which schisms contributed to the decline and fall of this greatest of states. Rome had thrived for one thousand years with pagan gods at the helm and expired after only one hundred and fifty years under the Christian banner. ~ Ruth Hurmence Green

Intelligent Design has been hijacked by a narrow group of creationist fundamentalists in America to mean something it didn't originally mean at all. It's another form of the God of the gaps. It's bad theology in that it turns God once again into the pagan god of thunder and lightning. ~ Guy Consolmagno

As Mr. R. U. Sayee has well said: 'It should be clear a priori that fairy lore must have developed as a result of modifications and accretions received in different countries and at many periods, though we must not overlook the part played by tradition in providing a mould that to some extent determines the nature of later additions.' It must also be self-evident that a great deal of confusion has been caused by the assumption that some spirit-types were fairies which in a more definite sense are certainly not of elfin provenance. In some epochs, indeed, Faerie appears to have been regarded as a species of limbo to which all 'pagan' spirits - to say nothing of defeated gods, monsters, and demons - could be banished, along with the personnel of Olympus and the rout of witchcraft. Such types, however, are usually fairly easy of detection. ~ Lewis Spence

I've always felt that there was something pathetic in the founders of religion who made it a condition of salvation that you should believe in them. It's as though they needed your faith to have faith in themselves. They remind you of those old pagan gods who grew wan and faint if they were not sustained by the burnt offerings of the devout. Advaita doesn't ask you to take anything on trust; it asks only that you should have a passionate craving to know Reality; it states that you can experience God as surely as you can experience joy or pain. And there are men in India today - hundreds of them for all I know - who have the certitude that they have done so. I found something wonderfully satisfying in the notion that you can attain Reality by knowledge. In later ages the sages of India in recognition of human infirmity admitted that salvation may be won by the way of love and the way of works, but they never denied that the noblest way, though they hardest, is the way of knowledge, for its instrument is the most precious faculty of man, his reason. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

One race there is of men, one of gods, but from one mother we both draw our breath. ~ Pindar

All who receive God's guidance and seek to live by it must expect experiences of this kind, to instruct, test, correct, purge, deepen, and strengthen them. For it is by these means that God trains, matures, and toughens his children, increases their faith, and makes them grow in Christ. ~ J.I. Packer

Our government is certainly going to fall like a rope of sand if unsupported by the moral fabric of God's Word. The moral structure in our country grew from Judeo-Christian roots. When those values are applied, they produce moral fruits. But if that structure disappears, the moral sentiment that shapes our nation's goals will disappear with it. ~ Billy Graham

12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, ~ Anonymous

The gods are just. No doubt. But their code of law is dictated, in the last resort, by the people who organize society; Providence takes its cue from men. ~ Aldous Huxley

In other words, our destiny is to become the gods that we once feared and worshipped. Science will give us the means by which we can shape the universe in our image. The question is whether we will have the wisdom of Solomon to accompany this vast celestial power. ~ Michio Kaku

I understood something then. My sister might be twice the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch. Her crumbling trash could not help me. ~ Madeline Miller

We are all trophies of God's grace, some more dramatically than others; Jesus came for the sick and not the well, for the sinner and not the righteous. He came to redeem and transform, to make all things new. May you go forth more committed than ever to nourish the souls who you touch, those tender lives who have sustained the enormous assaults of the universe. (pp.88) ~ Philip Yancey

I have been about the world long enough to know that God's plans for us, however infallibly good, may not take the form that we expect and demand. ~ Ellis Peters

As the books of Job, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk clearly show, God has a high threshold of tolerance for what appropriate to say in a prayer. God can "handle" my unsuppressed rage. I may well find that my vindictive feelings need God's correction - but only by taking those feelings to God will I have the opportunity for correction and healing. ~ Philip Yancey

This was a man who moved like the gods were watching: every gesture he made was upright and correct. There was no one else it could be but Hector ~ Madeline Miller

God's provision is timely. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I was the "feelings" child. Everything I did was a feeling, and it did not count. It is so difficult to talk about demons and gods and spirits without it seeming that you are mad, or sarcastic, or simple, or talking in pictures, or trying to confuse. Or trying to be interesting. It is difficult to talk about demons and make it understood that even if "spirit" is the best word available, it isn't the right word. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

I learned the Norse gods came with their own doomsday: Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods, the end of it all. The gods were going to battle the frost giants, and they were all going to die.

Had Ragnarok happened yet? Was it still to happen? I did not know then. I am not certain now. ~ Neil Gaiman

God is not exempt from emotional pain ... One the contrary, God's pain is as infinite as His love. ~ Terryl L. Givens

Do you know, my friends, that the Spirit within you is very God? Oh that our eyes were opened to see the greatness of God's gift! Oh that we might realize the vastness of the resources secreted in our own hearts! I could shout with joy as I think, "The Spirit who dwells within me is no mere influence, but a living Person; He is very God. The infinite God is within my heart!" I am at a loss to convey to you the blessedness of this discovery, that the Holy Spirit dwelling within my heart is a Person. ~ Watchman Nee

We've created the almost godly power of being able to alter the climate, to change the face of the earth, now we need to develop the consciousness of gods, and wield that power wisely ~ Anodea Judith

In place of our exhaustion and spiritual fatigue, God will give us rest. All He asks is that we come to Him ... that we spend a while thinking about Him, meditating on Him, talking to Him, listening in silence, occupying ourselves with Him - totally and thoroughly lost in the hiding place of His presence. ~ Charles R. Swindoll

That is why Bias jested with those who were going through the perils of a great storm with him and calling on the gods for help: "Shut up," he said, "so that they do not realize that you are here with me. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Hope is the expectation of fulfillment that is anchored in God's promise to meet my need. Hope is not based on my emotional or mental determination. It is rooted in God. Quite simply, we are optimistic because we have placed our hope. ~ Marilyn Meberg

If a God, any God, is deemed to represent the Universal & divine truth, then once one finds & truly embraces that truth, he/she becomes in harmony with God. To hold it any other way is to attribute to supposed Gods petty failings like jealousy & bittermess. If that is the case, then why would I hold forth a name embodying that which is in my heart when doing so would only reduce a truth I call divine to a level of mortal frailty? ~ R.A. Salvatore

Judge them for what they wished to be," he begged the Father of Gods, "not what the world made of them. ~ Nicholas Eames

Once we build beyond a human scale, once we conceive ourselves as Titans or as gods, we are lost in magnitude; we cannot control or limit what we do. The statistics of magnitude call out like Sirens to the statistics of destruction. If we have built towering cities, we have raised even higher the cloud of megadeath. If people are as grass before God, they are as nothing before their machines ...
... Past the scale of the human, our works do not liberate us - they confine us. They cut off access to the wilderness of Creation where we must go to be reborn - to receive the awareness, at once humbling and exhilarating, grievous and joyful, that we are a part of Creation, one with all that we live from and all that, in turn, lives from us. They destroy the communal rites of passage that turn us the wilderness and bring us home again. ~ Wendell Berry

No matter what circumstances we might face in life, it is possible for us to overcome in the midst of them by taking hold of God's thoughts. ~ Christine Caine

Jesus Christ ... came into the world to vindicate the infinite worth of God's holiness which had been desecrated by our sin and which seemed ... to be taken lightly because it was being passed over for nothing more than the blood of bulls. ~ John Piper

THE PATH IS exceedingly vast. From ancient times to the present day, even the greatest sages were unable to perceive and comprehend the entire truth; the explanation and teachings of masters and saints express only part of the whole. It is not possible for anyone to speak of such things in their entirety. Just head for the light and heat, learn from the gods, and through the virtue of devoted practice of the Art of Peace, become one with the divine. ~ Morihei Ueshiba

Faith is not a means of getting man's will done in heaven; it is the means of getting God's will done on earth. Faith does not put God at our beck and call; rather it puts us at his. ~ Ronald Dunn

If you spend time judging and criticizing people, you will not have time to heal from your pain or brokenness. You cannot love yourself when you judge or criticize others who are created in God's image and after His Likeness...in which you are also created. Love cannot operate from a space of pain. Love and hurt cannot reside in the same space. ~ Kemi Sogunle

And you, Persephone... You were foretold, too. I never wanted anything-" her mouth moved softly, gently over my skin "-until I wanted you. ~ Sarah Diemer

At the Twilight of Gods bides the Weaver of Odds. ~ Louise Blackwick

Anger tried to boil up higher inside her. She closed her eyes, praying for God's peace. Human wrath was against the will of God and only gave Satan influence over a soul. Honor must leave these evil men to God's justice. ~ Lyn Cote