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The notion that we can transfer our guilt and sufferings to some other being who will bear them for us is familiar to the savage mind. It arises from a very obvious confusion between the physical and the mental, between the material and the immaterial.

— James Frazer The Golden Bough (1890)

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More quotes by James Frazer

If mankind had always been logical and wise, history would not be a long chronicle of folly and crime.

The Golden Bough (1890)

The scapegoat upon whom the sins of the people are periodically laid, may also be a human being.

The Golden Bough (1890)

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

The Golden Bough (1890)

The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished, and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough.

The Golden Bough (1890)

The consideration of human suffering is not one which enters into the calculations of primitive man.

The Golden Bough (1890)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James Frazer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.