Joseph Campbell

Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon, but to our ignorance and complacency coming to an end.

Our demons are our own limitations which shut us off from the realization of the ubiquity of the spirit each of these demons is conquered in a vision quest.

Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself.

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.

Marriage is not a simple love affair, it's an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one.

Mythology is composed by poets out of their insights and realizations. Mythologies are not invented; they are found. You can no more tell us what your dream is going to be tonight than we can invent a myth. Myths come from the mystical region of essential experience.

For Shinto, at root, is a religion not of sermons but of awe: which is a sentiment that may or may not produce words, but in either case goes beyond them.

Find a place inside where theres joy and the joy will burn out the pain.

God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.

Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.

Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold.

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

When an idea is important to a person or culture it will find its way into imagery.

We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it's all about.

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.

The demon that you can swallow gives you its power and the greater lifes pain the greater lifes reply.

I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money - has turned himself into a slave.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe to match your nature with nature.

Computers are like old testament gods lots of rules and no mercy.

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.

Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

Follow your bliss and dont be afraid and door will open where you didnt know they were going to be.

We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

We save the world by being alive ourselves.

Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.

Love is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love. The stronger the love, the more the pain. Love itself is pain, you might say -the pain of being truly alive.

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.

One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life, but as an aspect of it.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

God is a metaphor for that which trancends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.

Love is a friendship set to music.

When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship.

Find a place inside where theres joy and that will burn out the pain.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

The warrior's approach is to say yes to life: yes to it all. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

We must be willing to get rid of the life weve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

When people get married because they think it's a long-time love affair, they'll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.

Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and its spectacular.

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.

Within the field of a secular society, which is a sort of neutral frame that allows individuals to develop their own lives, so long as they don't annoy their neighbors too much, each of us has an individual myth that's driving us, which we may or may not know.

If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.

We must let go of the life we had planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.

Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.

Perhaps some of us have to go through dark and devious ways before we can find the river of peace or the highroad to the souls destination.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.

Passion will move men beyond themselves, beyond their shortcomings, beyond their failures.

To find your own way is to follow your bliss. This involves analysis watching yourself and seeing where real deep bliss is not the quick little excitement but the real deep life filling bliss.

When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

Sit in a room and read “and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

We must be willing to let go of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.

The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves.

Find a place inside where there's joy and the joy will burn out the pain.

One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.

The goal of life is rapture. Art is the way we experience it.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.

Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character your stature and your life.

Out of perfection nothing can be made. Every process involves breaking something up.

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.

The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience here is the place to have the experience.

We must be willing to let go of the life weve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.

Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end.

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble there lies your treasure.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for youwhere there were only walls.

Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

I don't have to have faith, I have experience.

People say that what we are seeking is in for life. I don't think this is what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive.

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.