Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile our imagination to the bloody ritual which is prominent in almost every religion which has a strong sense of sin.

Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged.

This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the prominent place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific study of ancient faiths.

In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual.

The myths connected with individual sanctuaries and ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus of the worship; they served to excite the fancy and sustain the interest of the worshipper... no one cared what he believed about its origin.

The land of a god corresponds with the land of his worshipers.

That the God-man died for his people, and that His death is their life, is an idea which was in some degree foreshadowed by the older mystical sacrifices.

This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis... only of that force of precedent which in all times has been so strong to keep alive religious forms of which the original meaning is lost.

We are so accustomed to think of religion as a thing between individual men and God that we can hardly enter into the idea of a religion in which a whole nation in its national organisation appears as the religious unit.

Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men; and his religion... was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society.

The god can no more exist without his people than the nation without its god.

But, strictly speaking, this mythology was no essential part of ancient religion, for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the worshippers.

But if it not be true, the myth itself requires to be explained, and every principle of philosophy and common sense demand that the explanation be sought, not in arbitrary allegorical categories, but in the actual facts of ritual or religious custom to which the myth attaches.

The dissolution of the nation destroys the national religion, and dethrones the national deity.

In better times the religion of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that savage terror may dictate to the individual.

The god, it would appear, was frequently thought of as the physical progenitor or first father of his people.

Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile our imagination to the bloody ritual which is prominent in almost every religion which has a strong sense of sin.

The myths connected with individual sanctuaries and ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus of the worship they served to excite the fancy and sustain the interest of the worshipper no one cared what he believed about its origin.

Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.

You really should not do this job unless you're willing to put in that enormous amount of effort. You should not do the job unless you're willing to take risks. And you shouldn't do the job unless you're willing to lose the job, too.

When families observe a later, deeper stage of cult involvement they may find it necessary to consider the involvement of a professional such as myself in an intervention effort.

Much effort, much prosperity.

No one will deny that the excessive use of alcohol and alcoholic beverages would do more than any other single factor to make impossible a total war effort.

Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.

I'm not the type of person who goes through all this effort for a movie, and then doesn't care if anybody sees it. I want them to see it, and I want them to see it on the big screen.

It wasn't my plan to create such a record. All I did was put in the effort to win every match I played and it went on for weeks, months and years until my defeat to Ross Norman in Toulouse in 1986.

Periods of wholesome laziness, after days of energetic effort, will wonderfully tone up the mind and body.

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.

A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.

I'm always making a conscious effort to be viable and accessible.

A strenuous effort must be made to train young people to think for themselves and take independent charge of their lives.

If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.

Doyle stokes in a thousand shrewd touches with no effort at all. Wonderful.

I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace.

Sport is the habitual and voluntary cultivation of intensive physical effort.

The Russians obtained a number of plants under Lend-Lease, which had been authorized by Washington, that I thought were not justified for their war effort. They wanted them for postwar use.

I find it an effort to keep up appearances.

I am pleased to see that information campaigns, such as the America's WETLAND effort, are getting the message out, and people are beginning to realize that wetlands loss in Louisiana affects us all.

Mr. Speaker, genocide is the most potent of all crimes against humanity because it is an effort to systematically wipe out a people and a culture as well as individual lives.

We're going to make every effort to keep the Saints as Louisiana's team.

The paintings may communicate even better because people are lazy and they can look at a painting with less effort than they can read a poem.

It is to be deeply regretted that the clergymen would oppose an effort to teach the people the Bible truths; nevertheless, we find much opposition everywhere, and many clergymen will attempt to prevent the people from reading what is here written.

Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.

This is a group effort. This is group theatre. This is no big star turn. You could do things with it to do that but it would just be out of kilter. This is one reason I like this play. This is a unit.

Individual effort is almost relatively impossible to cope with the big problem of poverty as we see it.

The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.

To fail is a natural consequence of trying, To succeed takes time and prolonged effort in the face of unfriendly odds. To think it will be any other way, no matter what you do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your enthusiasm for trying again.