When you consider the superstitions and the imaginings of the old Cornish country-folk up to my grandmother's day, how their lives were swaddled in them from the cradle to the grave, their daily actions in large part determined by them - so many things you would not think of doing, like starting a journey on a Friday, or looking at the moon through a pane of glass, or failing to wear something new on Whitsunday - their minds haunted by ghosts and fears, you have a fair idea of what the minds of these people in the sixteenth century were like. It was a life full of shadows that frightened them and dangers that might come home to them; how much more so in those days when their fears had the sanction, and even the corroboration, of the elect and the intelligent: when a uniform religion existed to enforce its lessons and draw the moral. However, no doubt it filled up life for them, made it more interesting and exciting, more mysterious and incalculable; it added a dimension to it, where the modern uneducated, rid of their fears and ghosts, are apt to find life empty and void of meaning. A.L. Rowse
Some Similar Quotes
  1. This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to... - David Levithan

  2. Some moments are nice, some arenicer, some are even worthwritingabout. - Charles Bukowski

  3. Living with him is like being told a perpetual story: his mind is the biggest, most imaginative I have ever met. I could live in its growing countries forever. - Sylvia Plath

  4. There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it. - Shannon L. Alder

  5. When you're missing a peice of yourself, aching, gut wrenching emptiness begins to take over. Until you find the link that completes your very soul, the feeling will never go away. Most people find a way to fill this void, material possessions, a string of... - Jennifer Salaiz

More Quotes By A.L. Rowse
  1. I believe in my mask-- The man I made up is me I believe in my dance-- And my destiny

  2. This isn't champagne anymore. We went through the champagne a long time ago. This is serious stuff. The days of champagne are long gone.

  3. Weston: Look at my outlook. You don't envy it, right? Wesley: No.Weston: That's because it's full of poison. Infected. And you recognize poison, right? You recognize it when you see it? Wesley: Yes.Weston: Yes, you do. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>I can see that you do. My...

  4. When you consider all the writers who never even had a machine. Who would have given an eyeball for a good typewriter. Any typewriter. All the ones who wrote on a matchbook covers. Paper bags. Toilet paper. Who had their writing destroyed by their jailers....

  5. I don't understand my feelings. I really don't. I don't understand how I could hate you so much after so much time. How, no matter how much I'd like to not hate you, I hate you even more. It grows.

Related Topics