#legend

Legends should stay legends otherwise they just become history, when the natural course of things is the other way around, from history to legend. ↗

— Ian McDonald

#nature

Rumors had their own classic epidemiology. Each started with a single germinating event. Information spread from that point, mutating and interbreeding— a conical mass of threads, expanding into the future from the apex of their common birthplace. Eventually, of course, they'd wither and die; the cone would simply dissipate at its wide end, its permutations senescent and exhausted. There were exceptions, of course. Every now and then a single thread persisted, grew thick and gnarled and unkillable: conspiracy theories and urban legends, the hooks embedded in popular songs, the comforting Easter-bunny lies of religious doctrine. These were the memes: viral concepts, infections of conscious thought. Some flared and died like mayflies. Others lasted a thousand years or more, tricked billions into the endless propagation of parasitic half-truths. ↗

— Peter Watts

#pith #religion #rumor-cycles #snark #urban-legends

An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft. ↗

— Walter Bagehot

#clings #element #exaggeration #great #great virtues

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#control #describing #every #function #language

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. ↗

— Jean Arp

#after #back #contemplation #day #devices

There's a wealth of literature out there which, hopefully, will be, you know, exploded in the future, and I personally find it very rewarding to be involved with classic storytelling, and sort of legendary characters. ↗

— Sean Bean

#classic #exploded #find #future #hopefully

A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it. ↗

— Miles Davis

#doing #i #known #legend #man

I would like to be a legend, everyone wants to be a legend. ↗

— Yohan Blake

#i #legend #like #wants #would

I don't recommend steroids for everyone, and I don't recommend growth hormones for everyone. But for certain individuals, I truly believe, because I've experimented with it for so many years, that it can make an average athlete a super athlete. It can make a super athlete - incredible. Just legendary. ↗

— Jose Canseco

#average #because #believe #certain #everyone

Nobody in America, in the modern generation, has read their mythology or legends. ↗

— Kenneth Anger

#generation #legends #modern #mythology #nobody