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Joseph Campbell Quotes about Life

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If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.

If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Journey

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Change

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
Inspirational, Life, Spiritual

Midlife is when you reach the top of the ladder and find that it was against the wrong wall.

Joseph Campbell
Life, Wall, Ladders

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
Inspirational, Life, Happiness

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Spiritual

When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.

Joseph Campbell
Life, Darkness, Lost

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
Inspirational, Life, Arriving

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

Joseph Campbell
Life, Inspiring, Veterans Day
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.151, Anchor

It is within you that the divine lives.

Joseph Campbell
Love, Life, Divine

Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Happiness

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 what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Reality
TV Mini-Series "The Power of Myth" ("Episode 2", Chapter 4), 1988.

Wisdom and foolishness are practically the same. Both are indifferent to the opinions of the world

Joseph Campbell
Life, World, Opinion

What if we choose not to do the things we are supposed to do? The principal gain is a sense of an authentic act - and an authentic life. It may be a short one, but it is an authentic one, and that's a lot better than those short lives full of boredom. The principal loss is security. Another is respect from the community. But you gain the respect of another community, the one that is worth having the respect of.

Joseph Campbell
Life, Respect, Loss

Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need. Almost anything then becomes a continuous and increasing joy. What you have to do, you do with play. I think a good way to conceive of sacred space is as a playground. If what you're doing seems like play, you are in it. But you can't play with my toys, you have to have your own. Your life should have yielded some. Older people play with life experiences and realizations or with thoughts they like to entertain. In my case, I have books I like to read that don't lead anywhere.

Joseph Campbell
Life, Time, Fun

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come. -

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Letting Go

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

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Motivational
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.206, Anchor

The god you worship is the one you're capable of becoming.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, God

When you follow your bliss a kind of track opens up, that's always been there, waiting for you. And the life that you should be living, is the one that you will be living.

Joseph Campbell
Life, Track, Waiting

When you no longer are compelled by desire and fear . . . when you have seen the radiance in eternity from all forms of time . . . when you follow your bliss . . . doors will open where you would not have thought there were doors . . . and the world will step in and help.

Joseph Campbell
Life, Doors, Desire

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.

Joseph Campbell
Life, Children, Women
Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

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.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Encouraging
Joseph Campbell (2011). “A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living”, p.8, Joseph Campbell Foundation

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Space

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Faith

The adventure of the hero is the adventure of being alive

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Life, Positive
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.206, Anchor

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