Joseph Campbell Quotes

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

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

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

Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be.

People forget facts, but they remember stories.

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

God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, 'Ah!

The goal of life is rapture. Art is the way we experience it.

Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold.

In the absence of an effective general mythology, each of us has his private, unrecognized, rudimentary, yet secretly potent pantheon of dreams.

The function of the society is to cultivate the individual. It is not the function of the individual to support society.

If you follow your bliss...the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.

The warrior’s approach is to say ‘yes’ to life: ‘yes’ to it all.

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

‎"Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn't matter what his name is."

It's a shame to waste [the uniqueness that is you], by doing what someone else has done.

The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves.

The hero journey is inside of you; tear off the veils and open the mystery of your self.

Regrets are illuminations come too late.

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

It is within you that the divine lives.

Whatever the hell happens, say, 'This is what I need.'

Passion will move men beyond themselves, beyond their shortcomings, beyond their failures.

Questing... is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself.

The Fates guide those who will and drag those who won't!

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

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

Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.

There is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder and discovering that you’re on the wrong wall.

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.

If you want resurrection, you must have crucifixion... The hoarder, the one in us that wants to keep, to hold on, must be killed.

It's only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world.

Gods suppressed become devils, and often it is these devils whom we first encounter when we turn inward.

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

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.

If you want the whole thing, the gods will give it to you. But you must be ready for it.

Don't do anything that isn't play

The less there is of you, the more you experience the sublime.

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

The Greeks, it will be recalled, regarded Eros, the god of love, as the eldest of the gods; but also as the youngest, born fresh and dewy-eyed in every living heart.

You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.

Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one.

Every act has both good and evil results. The best we can do is lean to the light.

If you are falling....dive.

The goal is to live with God like composure on the full rush of energy, like Dionysus riding the leopard, without being torn to pieces.

The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.

Follow your inner heart and the world moves in and helps.

Love your enemies, for they determine who you are.

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

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.