Joseph Campbell Quotes

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

Freud tells us to blame our parents for all the shortcomings of our life, Marx tells us to blame the upper class of our society. But the only one to blame is oneself.

The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves or have listened only to their neighbors to learn what they ought to do, how they ought to behave, and what the values are they should be living for.

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.

If you follow someone else's way, you are not going to realize your potential.

If we fix on the old, we get stuck.

It's characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of course, the majority is always wrong.

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.

Everything starts with a story.

The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.

There's always the possibility of a fiasco. But there's also the possibility of bliss.

I think a person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money - has turned himself into a slave. Work begins when you don't like what you're doing. There's a wise saying: make your hobby your source of income. Then there's no such thing as work, and there's no such thing as getting tired. That's been my own experience. I did just what I wanted to do. It takes a little courage at first, because who the hell wants you to do just what you want to do; they've all got lots of plans for you. But you can make it happen.

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.

When you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.

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

Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute.

Every hero must have the courage to be alone, to take the journey for himself.

An old Apache storyteller reminds us

In marriage you are not sacrificing yourself to the other person. You are sacrificing yourself to the relationship.

Regrets are illuminations come too late.

Once you know the difference between right and wrong, you have lots fewer decisions to make.

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when lifeseems most challenging. Negativism to the pain and ferocity of life is negativism to life. We are not there until we can say 'yea' to it all.

I should have said, 'Follow your blisters.'

We save the world by being alive ourselves.

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

Without passion, men are not willing to pay any price or bear any burden to set the captives free.

If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.

Man was not breathed into the earth. Man came out of the earth.

Life is a guy trying to play a violin solo in public, while learning the music and his instrument at the same time.

It takes courage to do what you want. Other people have a lot of plans for you... Follow your bliss.

Anything you do has a still point. When you are in that still point, you can perform maximally.

He must put aside his pride, his virtue, beauty and life and bow or submit to the absolutely intolerable.

The concept of time shuts off eternity.

The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.

Your ego is your embodiment and your self is your potentiality and that's what you listen to when you listen for the voice of inspiration and the voice of 'What am I here for? What can I possibly make of myself?'

Perfection isn't human. Human beings are not perfect. What evokes our love--and I mean love, not lust--is the imperfection of the human being. So, when the imperfection of the real person peaks through, say, 'This is a challenge to my compassion.' Then make a try, and something might begin to get going.

People who don't have a concept of the whole can do very unfortunate things.

All we really want to do is dance.

I don’t think there is any such thing as an ordinary mortal. Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experience of life. All he has to do is recognize it and then cultivate it and get going with it. I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I’ve never met an ordinary man, woman, or child.

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.

Seek to know the power that is within you.

What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfillment or the fiasco. There's always the possibility of fiasco. But there's also the possibility of bliss.

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.

We have today to learn to get back into accord with the wisdom of nature and realize again our brotherhood with the animals and with the water and the sea.

If marriage isn't a first priority in your life, you're not married.

The theme of the Grail is the bringing of life into what is known as 'the wasteland.' The wasteland is the preliminary theme to which the Grail is the answer. . . It's the world of people living inauthentic lives - doing what they are supposed to do.

You know, when real trouble comes your humanity is awakened. The fundamental human experience is that of compassion.

For if anything is capable of making a poet of a literary man, it is my hometown love of the human, the living and ordinary.

Our life has become so economic and practical in its orientation that, as you get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where the hell you are, or what it is you intended. You are always doing something that is required of you. Where is your bliss station? You have to try to find it.

Poets are simply those who have made a profession and a lifestyle of being in touch with their bliss.

Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshifts of ignorance; regrets are illuminations come too late.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

Out of perfection nothing can be made. Every process involves breaking something up. The earth must be broken to bring forth life. If the seed does not die there is no plant. Bread results from the death of wheat. Life lives on lives. Our own life lives on the acts of other people. If you are lifeworthy, you can take it.

For we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heros of all time have gone before us.

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

First you must find your trajectory, and then comes the social coordination.

The principle of compassion is that which converts disillusionment into a participatory companionship. This is the basic love, the charity, that turns a critic into a living human being who has something to give to - as well as to demand of - the world.

Money is congealed energy, and releasing it releases life's possibilities.

Eternity is not future or past. Eternity is a dimension of now.

You have to learn to recognize your own depth.