Joseph John Campbell was an American professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. Profoundly inspirational Joseph Campbell quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
Famous Joseph Campbell Quotes
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.
There is what I would call the hero journey, the night sea journey, the hero quest, where the individual is going to bring forth in his life something that was never beheld before.
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.
The hero journey is a symbol that binds, in the original sense of the word, two distant ideas, the spiritual quest of the ancients with the modern search for identity.
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.
The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know.
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.
When I was about eleven I had read all the books about Indians in the children’s library and was actually admitted to the stacks. I remember coming home from the library with stacks of books. And I think that’s where my life as a scholar began. I know it did.
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.
By the time I was thirteen I knew about as much about American Indians as a good many anthropologists that I have met since.
Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.
In the summer of 1922 a family friend gave him a biography of Leonardo da Vinci that so inspired him he transferred to Columbia University to ‘shift my interest from science to cultural history’ and the humanities.
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.
The call to adventure signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of this society to a zone unknown.
Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted.
By the time he was twelve he was voraciously reading books about American Indians. He soon recognized the parallels between these stories and those of his own Roman Catholic tradition, a discovery that would fire a cross cultural study in the arcane discipline of mythology for the rest of his life.
When you find a writer who really is saying something to you, read everything that writer has written and you will get more education and depth of understanding out of that than reading a scrap here and a scrap there and elsewhere. Then go to people who influenced that writer, or those who were related to him, and your world builds together in an organic way that is really marvelous.
Along about 1917, and right nearby was a man whose books about Indians I had been reading.
Modern romance, like Greek tragedy, celebrates the mystery of dismemberment, which is life in time. The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved.
I went to school and had no problems with my studies, but my own enthusiasm was in this maverick realm of the American Indian mythologies.
Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.
They know the sociological interpretations of why the Indians are the way they are or were, but they don’t know much about Indians. And I did know.
The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change.
Passion makes most psychiatrists nervous
We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
The ego is as you think of yourself. You in relation to all the commitments of your life, as you understand them. The self is the whole range of possibilities that you’ve never even thought of. And you’re stuck with you’re past when you’re stuck with the ego. Because if all you know about yourself is what you found out about yourself, well, that already happened. The self is a whole field of potentialities to come through.
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
The fundamental human experience is that of compassion.
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
Now I found it in writing sentences. You can write that sentence in a way that you would have written it last year. Or you can write it in the way of the exquisite nuance that is sitting in your mind now. But that takes a lot of waiting for the right word to come.
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.
Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted.
The Hero Path: 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.
You can get a lot of work done if you stay with it and are excited and its play instead of work.
And where we had thought to slay another we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outwards 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.
When you find a writer who really is saying something to you, read everything that writer has written and you will get more education and depth of understanding out of that than reading a scrap here and a scrap there and elsewhere. Then go to people who influenced that writer, or those who were related to him, and your world builds together in an organic way that is really marvelous.
You are the Hero of your own Story.
They thought that it would be a disgrace to go forth as a group. Each entered the forest at a point that he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path. If there is a path it is someone else’s path and you are not on the adventure.
The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’ And so it starts.
If you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.
Whether you call someone a hero or a monster is all relative to where the focus of your consciousness may be.
There is an Indian fable of three beings who drank from a river one was a god, and he drank ambrosia; one was a man, and he drank water; and one was a demon, and he drank filth. What you get is a function of your own consciousness.
The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’ And so it starts. Joseph Campbell
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 have the answer.
That step, the heroic first step of the journey, is out of, or over the edge of your boundaries, and it often must be taken before you know that you will be supported. Joseph Campbell
Midlife is when you reach the top of the ladder and find that it was against the wrong wall.
You are the hero of your own story. Joseph Campbell
The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.
The hero of yesterday becomes the tyrant of tomorrow, unless he crucifies himself today. Joseph Campbell
I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.
For we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. Joseph Campbell
Marriage is not a love affair. A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction.
The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure. Joseph Campbell
Marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That’s why it’s a sacrament. You give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship, and when you’re giving, you’re not giving to the other person; you’re giving to the relationship.
If you’re going to have a story, have a big story. Joseph Campbell
Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. Joseph Campbell
I have found that you have only to take that one step toward the gods, and they will then take ten steps toward you. That step the heroic first step of the journey is out of, or over the edge of, your boundaries, and it often must be taken before you know that you will.
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. Joseph Campbell
When we talk about settling the world’s problems, we’re barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It’s a mess. It has always been a mess. We’re not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life giving elixir. It’s usually a cycle, a coming and a returning. Joseph Campbell
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.
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
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.
When you are on the right path, invisible hands will come to your aid. Joseph Campbell
Eternity is not the future or past. Eternity is a dimension of now.
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
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe to match your nature with Nature.
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 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.
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
Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.
The achievement of the hero is one that he is ready for and it’s really a manifestation of his character. It’s amusing the way in which the landscape and conditions of the environment match the readiness of the hero. The adventure that he is ready for is the one that he gets. Joseph Campbell
The eternal principle, which never was born, never will die it is in all things, it is in you now. You are the wave on the face of the ocean. When the wave is gone, is the water gone? Has anything happened? Nothing has happened. It is a play, a game, a dance.
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
A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen.
Follow your inner heart and the world moves in and helps. Joseph Campbell
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