Selected Quotes by Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell- Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American writer. He was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College.
He worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. His best-known work is his book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (1949). It discusses his theory regarding the journey of the archetypal hero shared by world mythologies, termed as the monomyth.
Since its publication, his theories have been applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. He is known for his philosophical phrase: "Follow your bliss". He gained recognition in Hollywood when George Lucas stated that his work influenced the Star Wars saga. However, his work has been subject to criticism, especially by academic folklorists.
Quotes by Joseph Campbell:
“I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met an ordinary man, woman or child.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“We save the world by being alive ourselves.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“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 soul's destination.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“Not all who hesitate are lost. The psyche has many secrets in reserve. And these are not disclosed unless required.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“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.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“A bit of advice
Given to a young Native American
At the time of his initiation:
As you go the way of life,
You will see a great chasm. Jump.
It is not as wide as you think.”
“You enter the forest
at the darkest point,
where there is no path.
Where there is a way or path,
it is someone else's path.
You are not on your own path.
If you follow someone else's way,
you are not going to realize
your potential.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“Regrets are illuminations come too late.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“We're not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“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.”
Joseph Campbell, Life
“The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination.”
Joseph Campbell, Life, Intelligence/Wisdom
“I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money [not for purpose or passion]- has turned himself into a slave.”
Joseph Campbell, Work, Freedom
“The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves.”
Joseph Campbell, Work
“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”
Joseph Campbell, Opportunities, Power, Life
“Instead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world.”
Joseph Campbell, Belief
“All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”
Joseph Campbell, Belief
“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals
“If you are falling....dive.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals
“If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals
“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.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals
“We're in a freefall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals, Life
“As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don't bother to brush it off. Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals, Life
“Follow your bliss.
If you do follow your bliss,
you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,
and doors will open
where you didn't know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals, Life
“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals, Life
“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals, Life
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals, Life
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals, Nature
“Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”
Joseph Campbell, Goals, Happiness
“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.”