James Frazer

"With the advance of knowledge, therefore, prayer and sacrifice assume the leading place in religious ritual; and magic; which once ranked with them as a legitimate equal, is gradually relegated to the…"

"From time immemorial the mistletoe has been the object of superstitious veneration in Europe."

"I am a plain practical man, not one of your theorists and splitters of hairs and choppers of logic."

"We seem to move on a thin crust which may at any moment be rent by the subterranean forces slumbering below."

"In course of time the slow advance of knowledge, which has dispelled so many cherished illusions, convinced at least the more thoughtful portion of mankind that the alterations of summer and winter, o…"

"Man has created gods in his own likeness and being himself mortal he has naturally supposed his creatures to be in the same sad predicament."

"The advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that ever recedes."

"Thus it comes about that the endeavour of primitive people to make a clean sweep of all their troubles generally takes the form of a grand hunting out and expulsion of devils and ghosts. They think th…"