Mircea Eliade quotes - page 2

Man becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane. (Mircea Eliade)
Myth is an extremely complex cultural reality, which can be approached and interpreted from various and complementary viewpoints. View quote
Mircea Eliade
In short, myths reveal that the World, man, and life have a supernatural origin and history, and that this history is significant, precious, and exemplary. View quote
Mircea Eliade
Every religion implies that it treats the problem of being and nonbeing, life and death. Their languages are different, but they speak about the same things. View quote
Mircea Eliade
The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world. View quote
Mircea Eliade
In each case we are confronted by the same mysterious act - the manifestation of something of a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our world, in objects that are an integral part of our natural "profane" world. View quote
Mircea Eliade
It is above all the valorizing of the present that requires emphasizing. View quote
Mircea Eliade
In short, myths describe the various and sometimes dramatic breakthroughs of the sacred (or the "supernatural") into the World. It is this sudden breakthrough of the sacred that really establishes the World and makes it what it is today. Furthermore, it is as a result of the intervention of Supernatural Beings that man himself is what he is today, a mortal, sexed, and cultural being. View quote
Mircea Eliade
The history of religions reaches down and makes contact with that which is essentially human: the relation of man to the sacred. View quote
Mircea Eliade
In one way or another one "lives" the myth, in the sense that one is seized by the sacred, exalting power of the events recollected or re-enacted. View quote
Mircea Eliade
The crises of modern man are to a large extent religious ones, insofar as they are an awakening of his awareness to an absence of meaning. (Mircea Eliade)
Unlike their predecessors, who treated myth in the usual meaning of the word, that is, as "fable," "invention," "fiction," they have accepted it as it was understood in archaic societies, where, on the contrary, "myth" means a "true story" and, beyond that, a story that is a most precious possession because it is sacred, exemplary, significant. View quote
Mircea Eliade
The interpretations of Freud are more and more successful because they are among the myths accessible to modern man. View quote
Mircea Eliade
The joy of life discovered by the Greeks is not a profane type of enjoyment: it reveals the bliss of existing, of sharing - even fugitively - in the spontaneity of life and the majesty of the world. Like so many others before and after them, the Greeks learned that the surest way to escape from time is to exploit the wealth, at first sight impossible to suspect, of the lived instant. View quote
Mircea Eliade
What is involved is not a commemoration of mythical events but a reiteration of them. View quote
Mircea Eliade
This myth was created by Freud. View quote
Mircea Eliade
The Spirit poured out at Pentecost, by whom we live in Christ and are returned to God (Father), is also not a "lesser God" but one and the same God who creates and redeems us. The doctrine of the Trinity is the product of reflection on the events of redemptive history, especially the Incarnation and the sending of the Spirit. View quote
Mircea Eliade
Whereas "false stories" can be told anywhere and at any time, myths must not be recited except during a period of sacred time (usually in autumn or winter, and only at night) View quote
Mircea Eliade
The history of religions reaches down and makes contact with that which is essentially human: the relation of man to the sacred. The history of religions can play an extremely important role in the crisis we are living through. The crises of modern man are to a large extent religious ones, insofar as they are an awakening of his awareness to an absence of meaning. View quote
Mircea Eliade
When the sacred manifests itself in any hierophany, there is not only a break in the homogeneity of space; there is also a revelation of an absolute reality, opposed to the nonreality of the vast surrounding expanse. The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world. In the homogenous and infinite expanse, in which no point of reference is possible and hence no orientation can be established, the hierophany reveals an absolute fixed point, a center. View quote
Mircea Eliade