Joseph Campbell

From BillionQuotes

Joseph Campbell (New York City, March 26, 1904 - Honolulu, October 30, 1987) was an American professor, writer, and orator best known for his work in the fields of (comparative) mythology and comparative religion.

Attributed

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

• "Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths."

• "...Mythology is often thought of as "other peoples" religions...Religion can be defined as mis-interpreted mythology"

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

• "The troubadours had many debates as to what the definition of love would be. One of the most interesting and precise debates states that the eyes are the scouts for the heart, and the eyes go forth to find an image to recommend to the heart. When the image is found and recommended, if the heart is a gentle heart- that is to say, a heart that is capable of love and not simply of lust- then love is born. If, on the other hand, it is not a gentle heart, then all you have is lust- the pig heart. You don't have love."

• "Artists are magical helpers. Evoking symbols and motifs that connect us to our deeper selves, they can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives."

• "The experience of a lifetime is the privilege of being who you are"

• "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. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open 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."

• "Wherever you are- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time."

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

• "The way to find out about happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you really are happy - not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what I call 'following your bliss"."

• "You can't have creativity unless you leave behind the bounded, the fixed, all the rules"

• "The warrior's approach to life is to say 'yes' to it, 'yea' to it all"

• "The adventure is its own reward - but it's necessarily dangerous, having both negative and positive possibilities, all of them beyond control."

• "The best advice is to take it all as if it had been of your intention - with that, you evoke the participation of your will."

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

• "We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us - the labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."

pt:Joseph Campbell