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.
There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification, the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions backed by the Church's infallible teaching authority. The answer is known by those who remember the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964. In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogmata carrying the mark of infallibility.
For without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith.
Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign, Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain! Vain as the leaf upon the stream, And fickle as a changeful dream; Fantastic as a woman's mood, And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood. Thou many-headed monster thing, Oh who would wish to be thy king!
What religion a man holds, to what race he belongs, these things are not important; the really important thing is this knowledge: the knowledge of God's plan for men. For God has a plan, and that plan is evolution.
That's what kept us going - a sense of absurdity, rather than humor.
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