The gods are fugitive guests of literature.
Roberto CalassoRead
Whatever else it might be, the divine is certainly the thing that imposes with maximum intensity the sensation of being alive.
Interpretation
The divine enhances the profound experience of life.
This quote by Roberto Calasso suggests that the concept of the divine brings a heightened awareness and intensity to our experience of being alive. It indicates that regardless of how one interprets the divine, it serves as a powerful force that amplifies our feelings and sensations, making life feel more vivid and meaningful.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about spirituality and its role in everyday life.
The gods are fugitive guests of literature.
We establish a connection with the unknown through the act of giving something and, paradoxically, the act of destroying something. That is what is behind sacrifice. What you offer and what you destroy, it is that surplus which is life itself.
Myth is never a single story. It is always a tree with many branches.
Stories never live alone; They are the branches of a family that we have to trace back, and forward.
The monster does not need the hero. it is the hero who needs him for his very existence. When the hero confronts the monster, he has yet neither power nor knowledge, the monster is his secret father who will invest him with a power and knowledge that can belong to one man only, and that only the monster can give.
The aim of all struggles for liberty is to keep in bounds the armed defenders of peace, the governors and their constables. The political concept of the individual's freedom means: freedom from arbitrary action on the part of the police power.
When we reach the outer limit of what Scripture says, it is time to stop arguing and start worshipping.
Well I do think there are people who are habitually negative and depressed and take the opposite approach because they imagine the worst, and their minds become dominated by that. They let their own emotions and expectations transform their perceptions of the world.
We assume, to begin with, that the individual is at least as complex in his internal structure as the language is which he speaks - otherwise, how could he speak a language which is complex?
Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents, and then later on in our life when we are oppressed by sickness and become old, we are again dependent on the kindness of others. Since at the beginning and end of our lives we are so dependent on other's kindness, how can it be in the middle that we would neglect kindness towards others?
It's wonderful how, the moment you talk about God and love, your voice becomes hard, and your eyes fill with hatred. No, Margret, you certainly haven't the true faith.
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