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One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.

Joseph Campbell

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Joseph Campbell
Age: 83 †
Born: 1904
Born: March 26
Died: 1987
Died: October 30
Academic
Anthropologist
Essayist
Ethnologist
Historian
Historian Of Religion
Lecturer
Mythologist
Orator
Researcher
Short Story Writer
White Plains
New York
Joseph John Campbell
Joseph Cambell
Flowering
Contemporary
Humanity
Another
Best
Find
Way
Fosters
Life
Dedicate

More quotes by Joseph Campbell

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The function of artists is the mythologization of the world.
Joseph Campbell
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Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshifts of ignorance regrets are illuminations come too late.
Joseph Campbell
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The actual point in question, throughout the centuries of Christian persecution, has never been faith in God, but faith in the Bible as the word of God, and in the Church (this Church or that) as the interpreter of that word.
Joseph Campbell
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The hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman, the figure in a myth or the dreamer of a dream discovers and assimilates his opposite (his own unsuspected self) either by swallowing it or by being swallowed.
Joseph Campbell
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God is within you. You yourself are your creator. If you find that place in yourself from which you brought this thing about, you will be able to live with it and affirm it, perhaps even enjoy it, as your life.
Joseph Campbell
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You are the Hero of your own Story.
Joseph Campbell
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Change the focus of the eye. When you have done that, then the end of the world as you formerly knew it will have occurred, and you will experience the radiance of the divine presence everywhere, here and now.
Joseph Campbell
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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.
Joseph Campbell
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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
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Every religion, every mythology is true in this sense: It is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery.
Joseph Campbell
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Everything starts with a story.
Joseph Campbell
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Mephistopheles, the machine man, can provide us with all the means, and is thus likely to determine the aims of life as well. But of course the characteristic of Faust, which makes him eligible to be saved, is that he seeks aims that are not those of the machine.
Joseph Campbell
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Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damned thing in the cave that was so dreaded has become the center.
Joseph Campbell
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Poetry comes out of an elite experience, the experience of people whose ears are opened to the song of the universe.
Joseph Campbell
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There are now no more horizons. And with the dissolution of horizons we have experienced and are experiencing collisions, terrific collisions, not only of peoples but also of their mythologies. It is as when dividing panels are withdrawn from between chambers of very hot and very cold airs: there is a rush of these forces together.
Joseph Campbell
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Participate joyfully in the sorrows of life
Joseph Campbell
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The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.
Joseph Campbell
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Writer’s block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.
Joseph Campbell
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Wisdom and foolishness are practically the same. Both are indifferent to the opinions of the world
Joseph Campbell
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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