Change Myths Quotes & Sayings

Sara Kendell once read somewhere that the tale of the world is like a tree. The tale, she understood, did not so much mean the niggling occurrences of daily life. Rather it encompassed the grand stories that caused some change in the world and were remembered in ensuing years as, if not histories, at least folktales and myths. By such reasoning, Winston Churchill could take his place in British folklore alongside the legendary Robin Hood; Merlin Ambrosius had as much validity as Martin Luther. The scope of their influence might differ, but they were all a part of the same tale. — Charles De Lint

Women are no more important than any other potential victims, but we are the primary targets of the messages and myths that sustain rape culture. We're the ones asked to change our behavior, limit our movements, and take full responsibility for the prevention of sexual violence in society. — Kate Harding

How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Today's happiness depends on yesterday's choice, just as today's choice will determine tomorrow's happiness.-RVM — R.v.m.

Forget the myths you have heard about radical feminism, for only some of them are true. Instead, prepare to think about why so many lies are told about this particular brand of feminism, how it acts as a scapegoat for all that is most threatening about our social movement and how any revolutionary movement for change could really ever be anything but threatening. These are the women you were warned about; you can be too. — Finn Mackay

It was the sort of house that glows with substance and savoir vivre in those advertisements for the best Scotch. It had wonderful bones. — Robert A. Metzger

Everyone wants to be appreciated, so if you appreciate someone, don't keep it a secret. — Mary Kay Ash

Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step ... If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story. — Ivan Illich

Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice. — Karen Armstrong

Conscience is justice's best minister; it threatens, promises, rewards, and punishes and keeps all under control; the busy must attend to its remonstrances, the most powerful submit to its reproof, and the angry endure its upbraidings. While conscience is our friend all is peace; but if once offended farewell the tranquil mind. — Mary Wortley Montagu

I foresee the Chinese ruling the world. What are you going to do to stop it? No president of the United States will ever have enough power to stop the Chinese when they want to take over the world. — Evel Knievel

The psychological theories that inform day-to-day business practices are comprised mostly of folk-psychology, fads, and myths. — Paul Gibbons

If you love your girl? Buy her books." A — Kylie Scott

Don't change the subject," Blaze snapped. "You said dragons? And untie me, damn it. My wrists hurt." He shrugged, completely ignoring her complaints. "Of course there are dragons. Where you think the myths come from? — Sara King

This culture destroys landbases. That's what it does. When you think of Iraq, is the first thing that comes to mind cedar forests so thick that sunlight never touched the ground? One of the first written myths of this culture is about Gilgamesh deforesting the hills and valleys of Iraq to build a great city. The Arabian Peninsula used to be oak savannah. The Near East was heavily forested (we've all heard of the cedars of Lebanon). Greece was heavily forested. North Africa was heavily forested.
We'll say it again: this culture destroys landbases.
And it won't stop doing so because we ask nicely. — Derrick Jensen

If we meet a myth with our lives and deepest concerns, the mythic oracles speak directly to us. Myths are oracular in the sense that each person can receive a message or an insight that relates to their life circumstances. The point has never been to "believe" in myths or to simply accept what others have said they mean. The key issue with mythic images is to let them speak to us, wherever and whenever we find ourselves seeking guidance, permission, or understanding. — Michael Meade

To animals they were just the weather, just part of everything.
But humans arose and gave them names, just as people filled the starry sky with heroes and monsters, because this turned them into stories.
And humans loved stories, because once you'd turned things into stories, you could change the stories. — Terry Pratchett

When I first tried the American accent, for a moment I thought I could never be an actor because I just could not do it. But then I thought, 'Okay, it'll just be something that I work at until I get it.' — Margot Robbie

God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. Abraham built an altar, put firewood upon it, and trusted Isaac up on top of the wood. His murdering knife was already in his hand when an angel dramatically intervened with the news of a last-minute change of plan: God was only joking after all, 'tempting' Abraham, and testing his faith. A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two assymetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: 'I was only obeying orders.' Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions. — Richard Dawkins

How many students ... were rendered callous to ideas, and how many lost the impetus to learn because of the way in which learning was experienced by them? — John Dewey

On The Practice, I get to do what I love to do, and I am making a contribution that will, in the end, help raise social consciousness, dispel some of the myths about being large, and change the way that people view and interact with large people. — Camryn Manheim

I like to sing along to Annie Lennox and pretend to be as sassy as her. — Sophie Thompson

To change our realities, we also have to change our myths. As history amply demonstrates, myths and realities go hand in hand. — Riane Eisler

I extend my appreciation to the associations, movements and all those who defend human life. — Pope Francis

As an oracle to the goddess, the female outcast speaks as prophetess of times to come, interpreter of dreams of an unrevealed future. Outcasts are at home in the world of magic and infinite change. Their individual personalities merge with that of legend. Becoming vehicles of immortality, they self create their own myths, weave a spell over poets and artists and spread a belief in transcendence that heralds the future. — Florence Farr

The merely worldly is disparaged in all religions, rejected for its relativity. But what they mean is only that you should not forget the dependence of our reality and pretend against all evidence of change that it is constant and eternal. Praise of the world, rightly understood as a reflection of the absolute, is just as central to religion. Myths — Barbara C. Sproul

One of the enduring myths of campaign analysis is that you can actually count the number of 'undecided' voters by asking voters if they are undecided or not. Sometimes, significant numbers of voters actually change their minds. — Jeff Greenfield

The New York Philharmonic is a tremendous opportunity, a great orchestra. — Zubin Mehta