James Frazer quotes - page 3

They too, like so much that to the common eye seems solid, may melt into air, into thin air. (James Frazer)
Thus the killing of a god may sometimes come to be confounded with the execution of a criminal. View quote
James Frazer
For myth changes while custom remains constant. View quote
James Frazer
A Nootka wizard will make an image of a swimming fish and put it into the water in the direction from which the fish generally appear. View quote
James Frazer
From the earliest times man has been engaged in a search for general rules whereby to turn the order of natural phenomena to his own advantage, and in the long search he has scraped together a great hoard of such maxims, some of them golden and some of them mere dross. The true or golden rules constitute the body of applied science which we call the arts; the false are magic. View quote
James Frazer
For when a nation becomes civilized, if it does not drop human sacrifices altogether, it at least selects as victims only such wretches as would be put to death at any rate. Thus the killing of a god may sometimes come to be confounded with the execution of a criminal. View quote
James Frazer
But once a fool always a fool, and the greater the power in his hands the more disastrous is likely to be the use he makes of it. The heaviest calamity in English history, the breach with America, might never have occurred if George the Third had not been an honest dullard. View quote
James Frazer
The natives of British Columbia live largely upon the fish which abound in their seas and rivers. If the fish do not come in due season, and the Indians are hungry, A Nootka wizard will make an image of a swimming fish and put it into the water in the direction from which the fish generally appear. This ceremony, accompanied by a prayer to the fish to come, will cause them to arrive at once. View quote
James Frazer