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What gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man's imagination?

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
Gods
Atheism
Imagination
Religion
Ever
Men

More quotes by Joseph Campbell

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The notion of this universe, its heavens, hells, and everything within it, as a great dream dreamed by a single being in which all the dream characters are dreaming too, has in India enchanted and shaped the entire civilization.
Joseph Campbell
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Eternity is not a long time rather, it is another dimension. It is that dimension to which time-thinking shuts us. And so there never was a creation. Rather, there is a continuous creating going on. This energy is pouring into every cell of our being right now, every board and brick of the buildings we sit in, every grain of sand and wisp of wind.
Joseph Campbell
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The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. Fear of the unknown is our greatest fear. Many of us would enter a tiger's lair before we would enter a dark cave. While caution is a useful instinct, we lose many opportunities and much of the adventure of life if we fail to support the curious explorer within us.
Joseph Campbell
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I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money - has turned himself into a slave.
Joseph Campbell
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Our life evokes our character. You find out more about yourself as you go on. That's why it's good to put yourself in situations that will evoke your higher nature rather than your lower.
Joseph Campbell
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A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen. Dreams and goals should be just out of your present reach but not out of sight. Dreams and goals are coming attractions in your life.
Joseph Campbell
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What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power of a value system that functions in human life and in the universe.
Joseph Campbell
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This is all I ever wanted - to help students and artists see myth as a reflection of the one sublime adventure of life, and then to breathe new life into it.
Joseph Campbell
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Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one.
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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It is not only that there is no hiding place for the gods from the searching telescope and microscope there is no such society any more as the gods once supported.
Joseph Campbell
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Without passion, men are not willing to pay any price or bear any burden to set the captives free.
Joseph Campbell
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Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.
Joseph Campbell
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We're all seeking...the rapture of being alive.
Joseph Campbell
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There is no way you can use the word “reality” without quotation marks around it.
Joseph Campbell
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God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.
Joseph Campbell
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You have been thinking one way. Now you have to think a different way.
Joseph Campbell
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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
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Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Follow the path that is no path, follow your bliss.
Joseph Campbell
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Perfection isn't human. Human beings are not perfect. What evokes our love--and I mean love, not lust--is the imperfection of the human being. So, when the imperfection of the real person peaks through, say, 'This is a challenge to my compassion.' Then make a try, and something might begin to get going.
Joseph Campbell