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Every myth is psychologically symbolic. Its narratives and images are to be read, therefore, not literally, but as metaphors.

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
Therefore
Metaphors
Read
Psychologically
Every
Symbolic
Metaphor
Literally
Images
Narrative
Myth
Narratives

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Preachers err by trying to talk people into belief better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery.
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There is no make-believe about heaven, future bliss, and compensation, to alleviate the bitter majesty, but only utter darkness, the void of unfulfillment, to receive and eat back the lives that have been tossed forth from the womb only to fail.
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When you are falling --- Dive!
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The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others.
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There's nothing you can do that's more important than being fulfilled. You become a sign, you become a signal, transparent to transcendence in this way, you will find, live, and become a realization of your own personal myth.
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The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.
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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.
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It's characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of course, the majority is always wrong.
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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.
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Economics and politics are the governing powers of life today, and that's why everything is so screwy.
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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.
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When an idea is important to a person or culture it will find its way into imagery.
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The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.
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As a white candle / In a holy place, / So is the beauty / Of an aged face
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We have today to learn to get back into accord with the wisdom of nature and realize again our brotherhood with the animals and with the water and the sea.
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Your ego is your embodiment and your self is your potentiality and that's what you listen to when you listen for the voice of inspiration and the voice of 'What am I here for? What can I possibly make of myself?'
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We're all seeking...the rapture of being alive.
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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.
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Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute.
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