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Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake.
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) American poet, novelist, literary critic Brother to Dragons, Foreword (1953)
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My dear brothers, when you hear the progress of enlightenment extolled, never forget that the devil’s cleverest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist!
[Mes chers frères, n’oubliez jamais, quand vous entendrez vanter le progrès des lumières, que la plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas!]
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) French poet, essayist, art critic Le Spleen de Paris (Petits Poèmes en Prose), No. 29 “The Generous Gambler [Le Joueur généreux]” (1869) [tr. Kaplan (1989)]
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A warning by a Parisian preacher, as reported by the Devil himself. Used in movie The Usual Suspects (1995) as "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
My dear brethren, never forget, when you hear the progress of wisdom vaunted, that the cleverest ruse of the Devil is to persuade you he does not exist!
[tr. Shipley (<1919) "The Generous Player"]
My dear brethren, never forget, when you hear boasts about the progress of enlightenment, that the finest ruse of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist!
[tr. Hamburger (1946) "The Generous Gamester"]
My dear brothers, never forget when you hear people boast of our progress in enlightenment, that one of the devil's best ruses is to persuade you that he does not exist!
[tr. Varèse (1970)]
The Devil's subtlest ruse is to convince us that he doesn't exist.
[tr. McGowan (1993)]
Dear brethren, never forget that the finest of all the devil's tricks is to persuade you that he doesn't exist.
[tr. Lerner (2003)]
My dear brethren, do not ever forget, when you hear the progress of lights praised, that the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist!
[Source]
Splash page of All Star Comics #8 (Dec/Jan 1941/42)At last, in a world torn by the hatred and wars of men, appears a woman to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child’s play — a woman whose identity is known to none, but whose sensational feats are outstanding in a fast-moving world! With a hundred times the agility and strength of our best male athletes and strongest wrestlers, she appears as though from nowhere to avenge an injustice or right a wrong! As lovely as Aphrodite — as wise as Athena — with the speed of Mercury and the strength of Hercules — she is known only as Wonder Woman, but who she is, or whence she came, nobody knows!
William Moulton Marston (1893-1947) American psychologist, writer [pen name Charles Moulton]
“Introducing Wonder Woman,” All Star Comics #8 (25 Oct 1941) [with artist Harry G. Peter]
First appearance of the comic book character Wonder Woman.
We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that’s the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?
Malcolm Gladwell (b. 1963) Anglo-Canadian journalist, author, public speaker Outliers: The Story of Success, Part 2, ch. 9 (2008)
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Who knows whether, when a comet shall approach this globe to destroy it, as it often has been and will be destroyed, men will not tear rocks from their foundations by means of steam, and hurl mountains, as the giants are said to have done, against the flaming mass? — and then we shall have traditions of Titans again, and of wars with Heaven.
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet Conversations of Lord Byron with Thomas Medwin, Vol. 2 (1832)
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Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that Capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves, and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“The Three Evils,” Keynote Speech, National Conference for New Politics, Chicago (31 Aug 1967)
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It’s dated, called a fable; men are clever,
But they are just as badly off as ever:
The Evil One is gone, the evil ones remain.
[Er ist schon lang in Fabelbuch geschrieben;
Allein die Menschen sind nichts besser dran,
Den Bösen sind sie los, die Bösen sind geblieben.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist Faust: a Tragedy [eine Tragödie], Part 1, sc. 9 “Witches’ Kitchen,” l. 2557ff [Mephistopheles] (1808-1829) [tr. Kaufmann (1961)]
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On humanity no longer believing in "Satan."
Some translations (and this site) include the Declaration, Prelude on the Stage, and Prologue in Heaven as individual scenes; others do not, leading to their Part 1 scenes being numbered three lower.
This many a day 'tis written down a fable;
Yet men are nowise winners in the game.
They're rid of the Evil One, the Evil still are able.
[tr. Latham (1790)]
That's been known as a fable many a season;
But men have things no better for that reason.
Free are they from the Evil One; the evil are still here.
[tr. Priest (1808)]
It has been long written in story books; but men are not the better for that; they are rid of the wicked one, the wicked have remained.
[tr. Hayward (1831)]
To fable-books it now doth appertain;
But people from the change have nothing won.
Rid of the evil one, the evil ones remain.
[tr. Swanwick (1850)]
It has long since to fable-books been banished;
But men are none the better for it; true,
The wicked one, but not the wicked ones, has vanished.
[tr. Brooks (1868)]
It's long been written in the Book of Fable;
Yet, therefore, no whit better men we see:
The Evil One has left, the evil ones are stable.
[tr. Taylor (1870)]
That name has had its station long assigned
With Mother Bunch; and yet I cannot see
Men are much better for the want of me.
The wicked one is gone, the wicked stay behind.
[tr. Blackie (1880)]
It's now a name for fairy tales and fables;
the people are as miserable as ever --
the Evil One is gone, the evil ones remain.
[tr. Salm (1962)]
It's been consigned to storybooks for youngsters;
Mind you, men are no better off for that.
The Fiend is gone, the fiends are still amongst us.
[tr. Arndt (1976)]
The name has been a myth too long.
Not that man's any better off -- the Evil One
They're rid of, evil is still going strong.
[tr. Luke (1987)]
Since God knows when it belongs to mythology,
But that's hardly improved the temper of humanity.
The Evil One's no more, evil ones more than ever.
[tr. Greenberg (1992)]
It only comes in fairy stories nowadays.
But even so, humanity's no better off --
The Evil One has gone, they've kept their evil ways.
[tr. Williams (1999)]
It’s written in story books, always:
Men are no better for it, though:
The Evil One’s gone: the evil stays.
[tr. Kline (2003)]
Mussolini makes clear that the fascist mythic past is intentionally mythical. The function of the mythic past, in fascist politics, is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology — authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity, and struggle.
Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, ch. 1 (2018)
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Representing the voices of all those whose existence has shaped and formed the world in which we live provides an essential protection against the fascist myth.
Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, ch. 4 (2018)
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The strategic aim of these hierarchical constructions of history is to displace truth, and the invention of a glorious past includes the erasure of inconvenient realities.
Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, ch. 1 (2018)
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The past exudes legend: one can’t make pure clay of time’s mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was. Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction.
Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) American author Dubin’s Lives, ch. 1 (1977)
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Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people.
Timothy Snyder (b. 1969) American historian, author On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017)
Each evening, from December to December,
Before you drift to sleep upon your cot,
Think back on all the tales that you remember
Of Camelot.
Ask ev’ry person if he’s heard the story,
And tell it strong and clear if he has not,
That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory
Called Camelot.
Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986) American dramatist, lyricist, composer
“Finale Ultimo (Camelot Reprise)” [Arthur], Camelot(1960; 1967)
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Based on T.H. White, The Once and Future King (1958).
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need … fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little –”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET — Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME … SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point –”
MY POINT EXACTLY.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author Hogfather (1996)
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With St. Paul it is quite different. He is a saint without a luminous halo. His personal characteristics are too distinct and too human to make idealisation easy. For this reason he has never been the object of popular devotion. Shadowy figures like St. Joseph and St. Anne have been divinised and surrounded with picturesque legends; but St. Paul has been spared the honour or the ignominy of being coaxed and wheedled by the piety of paganised Christianity. No tender fairy-tales are attached to his cult; he remains for us what he was in the flesh. It is even possible to feel an active dislike for him.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“St. Paul” (1914), Outspoken Essays: First Series (1914)
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We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us. Ideas of the Stone Age exist side by side with the latest scientific thought. Only a fraction of mankind has emerged from the Dark Ages, and in the most lucid brains, as Logan Pearsall Smith has said, we come upon “nests of woolly caterpillars.”
Bergen Evans (1904-1978) American educator, writer, lexicographer The Natural History of Nonsense, ch. 1 “Adam’s Navel” (1946)
Ever since I had dinner with Lou Reed I’ve tried to avoid meeting the people who would make me feel starstruck. It was a great dinner but by the end of it Lou Reed was no longer my hero, and I don’t have many heroes. I resolutely avoided meeting David Bowie, which became harder when I became friends with Duncan Jones, his son, and then got even harder when I moved to Woodstock and he lived around the corner. But I love the fact that the Bowie that I have is the Bowie in my head: a strange, evolving, absolutely fictional Bowie who became my hero when I was 11.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
“This Much I Know,” The Guardian (5 Aug 2017)
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It was said that God, in order to test mankind which had become swelled with pride as in the time of Noah, had commanded the wise men of that age, among them the Blessed Leibowitz, to devise great engines of war such as had never before been upon the Earth, weapons of such might that they contained the very fires of Hell, and that God had suffered these magi to place the weapons in the hands of princes, and to say to each prince: “Only because the enemies have such a thing have we devised this for thee, in order that they may know that thou hast it also, and fear to strike. See to it, m’Lord, that thou fearest them as much as they shall now fear thee, that none may unleash this dread thing which we have wrought.” But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy these others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine.
Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge.
Walter M. Miller Jr. (1923-1996) American science fiction writer A Canticle for Leibowitz, “Fiat Homo,” ch. 6 (1959)
But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to F. A. Van der Kamp (27 Dec 1816)
The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it — because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer Tremendous Trifles, “The Red Angel” (1909)
JOYCE: An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist’s touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships —– and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) Czech-English playwright and screenwriter Travesties. Act 1 (1974)
Stoppard called this "the most important" speech in the play.
Every nation, like every individual, walks in a vain show — else it could not live with itself — but I never got over the wonder of a people who, having extirpated the aboriginals of their continent more completely than any modern race had ever done, honestly believed that they were a godly little New England community, setting examples to brutal mankind.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer Something of Myself, ch. 15 (1937)
Down with the debunking biographer. It now seems to be quite a thing to pull down the mighty from their seats and roll them in the mire. This practice deserves pronounced condemnation. Hero worship is a tremendous force in uplifting and strengthening. Humanity, let us have our heroes. Let us continue to believe that some have been truly great; that it lies within human ability to overcome temptations and trials; that it is sublime to suffer and be strong. Petty biographers with inferior souls and jealous hearts would rob us of these happy privileges. Sensationalism is alright for yellow journalism, but in biography we wish to see our famous men and women as they were and feel the power of the strength and beauty of their lives. Down with the debunking biographer.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Editorial, Southwest Texas State Teachers College College Star, San Marcos (1929-07-17)
Considering history as a moral exercise, her lessons would be too unfrequent if confined to real life. Of those recorded by historians few incidents have been attended with such circumstances as to excite in any high degree this sympathetic emotion of virtue. We are therefore wisely framed to be as warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage. The spacious field of imagination is thus laid open to our use, and lessons may be formed to illustrate and carry home to the mind every moral rule of life. Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics and divinity that ever were written.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Robert Skipwith (3 Aug 1771)
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And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Adams (11 Apr 1823)
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For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Commencement Address, Yale University (1962-06-11)
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People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking the responsibility for what they know.
Brooks Atkinson (1894-1984) American drama critic and journalist Once Around the Sun, “February 2” (1951)
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