Myth is the nothing that is everything.

 

Myth is the nothing that is everything.
--
Original: O mito é o nada que é tudo.
--
Poem "Ulisses", verse 1

 

Fernando Pessoa

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Dream is personalized myth, myth is depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche. But in the dream the forms are quirked by the peculiar troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problem and solutions shown are directly valid for all mankind.

 

Joseph Campbell

 

But the myth of power is, of course, a very powerful myth, and probably most people in this world more or less believe in it. It is a myth, which, if everybody believes in it, becomes to that extent self-validating. But it is still epistemological lunacy and leads inevitably to various sorts of disaster.

 

Gregory Bateson

 

A purely individualized myth is an obsession, sometimes a psychosis. A purely socialized myth is an ideology, which sooner or later also becomes obsessive or psychotic. A myth that has either the direct current of transcendence or the alternating current of imagination rises clear of this grisly antithesis. (2:716)

 

Northrop Frye

 

The purpose of education, so one would think, is to introduce the young into life,and that means: into the society where they are born and into the physical universe that surrounds the society. The method of education often consists in the teaching of some basic myth. The myth is available in various versions. More advanced versions may be taught by initiation rites which firmly implant them into the mind. Knowing the myth, the grown-up can explain almost everything (or else he can turn to experts for more detailed information). He is the master of Nature and of Society. He understands them both and he knows how to interact with them. However, he is not the master of the myth that guides his understanding.

 

Paul Karl Feyerabend

 

You know the stripper myth? There's a stripper myth, that's being perpetuated throughout society. The myth is, I'm strippin' to pay my tuition. No you're not! There's no strippers in college! There's no clear heels in biology! Shit, man. I didn't know they had a college that only took one-dollar bills. And if they got so many strippers at college, how come I never got a smart lap dance? I never got a girl that sat on my lap and said, If I was you, I would diversify my portfolio. You know, ever since the end of the Cold War, I find NATO obsolete!.

 

Chris Rock

 

Freud … has not given an explanation of the ancient myth. What he has done is to propound a new myth.

 

Sigmund Freud