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Joseph Campbell Quotes - Page 10

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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.

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.

Joseph Campbell
Ubiquity, Vision, Quests

Your adventure has to be coming out of your own interior. If you are ready for it then doors will open where there were no doors before, and where there would not be doors for anyone else. And you must have courage. It's the call to adventure, which means there is no security, no rules.

Joseph Campbell
Adventure, Mean, Doors

Thinking in mythological terms helps to put you in accord with the inevitables of this vale of tears. You learn to recognize the positive values in what appear to be the negative moments and aspects of your life. The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.

Joseph Campbell
Adventure, Thinking, Tears
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.206, Anchor

Follow your bliss. The heroic life is living the individual adventure.

Joseph Campbell
Adventure, Heroic, Life Is

The function of artists is "the mythologization of the world."

Joseph Campbell
Artist, World, Function

Don't do anything that isn't play

Joseph Campbell
Communication, Play, Nonviolent Communication

You know the rule: If you are falling, dive. Do the thing that has to be done.

Joseph Campbell
Fall, Done, Knows

Dragons, you know, we have a good deal of biology and zoology about the dragon; we know their habits. The dragon tends to guard things, and he usually has these guarded in a cave... Now dragons don't know what to do either with beautiful girls or gold, but they just hang on. There are people like this. We call them creeps.

Joseph Campbell
Beautiful, Girl, Dragons

What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light, or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle?

Joseph Campbell
Light, Bulbs, Vehicle
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.88, Anchor

When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die. . . . (90)

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Realizing, Eternity

All religions are true but none are literal.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Hero Journey, Religion

Behind all these manifestations is the one radiance, which shines through all things. The function of art is to reveal this radiance through the created object.

Joseph Campbell
Art, Shining, Radiance
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.134, Anchor

What is required is the finding of that Immovable Point within one's self, which is not shaken by any of those tempests which the Buddhists call 'the eight karmic winds': 1-fear of pain, 2-desire for pleasure; 3-fear of loss; 4-desire for gain; 5-fear of blame, 6-desire for praise; 7-fear of disgrace; [and] 8-desire for fame.

Joseph Campbell
Karma, Buddhist, Pain

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.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Heaven, Eternity

When you are in accord with nature, nature will yield its bounty. This is something that is coming up in our own consciousness now...recognizi ng that by violating the environment in which we are living, we are really cutting off the energy and source of our own living. And it’s this sense of accord, so that living properly in relation to what has to be done in this world one fosters the vitality of the environment.

Joseph Campbell
Cutting, Yield, Energy

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

Joseph Campbell
Life, Priorities, Firsts
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.6, Anchor

I think what we lack isn't science, but poetry that reveals what the heart is ready to recognize

Joseph Campbell
Heart, Thinking, Ready

All men are capable of reason. That is the fundamental principle of democracy Because everybody's mind is capable of true knowledge, you don't have to have a special authority, or a special revelation telling you that this is the way things should be.

Joseph Campbell
Men, Mind, Democracy
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.31, Anchor

Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And that’s what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.

Joseph Campbell
Nature, Art, Mirrors
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.68, Anchor

You know, I didn't write my books for critics and scholars. I wrote them for students and artists. When I hear how much my work has meant to them--well, I can't tell you how happy that makes me. That means that this great stuff of myth, which I have been so privileged to work with, will be kept alive for a whole new generation. That's the function of the artists, you know, to reinterpret the old stories and make them come alive again, in poetry, painting, and now in movies.

Joseph Campbell
Book, Mean, Writing

Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself... The problem is not to blame or explain but to handle the life that arises... If you say no to a single factor in your life, you have unraveled the whole thing... The demon that you swallow gives you its power, and the greater life's pain, the greater life's reply.

Joseph Campbell
Pain, Knowing Who You Are, Giving

Now all the myths that you have heard and that resonate with you, those are the elements from round about that you are building into a form in your life. The thing worth considering is how they relate to each other in your context, not how they relate to something out there-how they were relevant on the North American prairies or in the Asian jungles hundreds of years agon, but how they are relevant now-unless by contemplating their former meaning you can begin to amplify your own understanding of the role they play in your life.

Joseph Campbell
Years, Play, Understanding

There have been systems of religion where the mother is the prime parent, the source, and she's really a more immediate parent than the father, because one is born from the mother...so that the image of the woman is the image of the world.

Joseph Campbell
Mother, Father, Parent

Myths are stories for our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to tell our story and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to live and then to death. We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are.

Joseph Campbell
Age, Needs, Stories
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.4, Anchor

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
Hero, Taken, Adventure

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