Karen Armstrong

The author of The History of God and In the Beginning: A New Reading of Genesis offers a useful, well-written introduction to mythology from the Paleolithic period to the "Great Western Transformation" that used science to discredit myth. Reprint.

A Short History of Myth

Riley

“We are meaning-seeking creatures. Dogs, as far as we know, do not agonize about the canine condition, worry about the plight of dogs in other parts of the world, or try to see their lives from different perspectives. But human beings fall easily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value.” 

“Like science and technology, mythology, as shall see, is not about opting out of this world, but about enabling us to live more intensely within it.” 

“Myth is about the unknown; it is about that for which initially we have no words. Myth therefore looks into the heart of a great silence.”

A Short History of Myth quotes

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