Quote

Our demons are our own limitations, which shut us off from the realization of the ubiquity of the spirit . . . each of these demons is conquered in a vision quest.

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
Spirit
Quests
Quest
Limitations
Demon
Limitation
Shut
Ubiquity
Realization
Conquered
Vision
Demons

More quotes by Joseph Campbell

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We are kept out of the Garden by our own fear and desire in relation to what we think to be the goods of our life.
Joseph Campbell
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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.
Joseph Campbell
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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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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.
Joseph Campbell
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Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself... The problem is not to blame or explain but to handle the life that arises... If you say no to a single factor in your life, you have unraveled the whole thing... The demon that you swallow gives you its power, and the greater life's pain, the greater life's reply.
Joseph Campbell
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The function of the artist is the mythologization of the culture and the world. In the visual arts there were two men whose work handled mythological themes in a marvelous way: Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso.
Joseph Campbell
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Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn't matter what his name is.
Joseph Campbell
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When people get married because they think it's a long-time love affair, they'll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.
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Without passion, men are not willing to pay any price or bear any burden to set the captives free.
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The idea of the Bodhisattva is the one who out of his realization of transcendence participates in the world. The imitation of Christ is joyful participation in the sorrows of the world.
Joseph Campbell
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For the bliss of the deep abode is not lightly abandoned in favor of the self-scattering of the wakened state.
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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For we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heros of all time have gone before us.
Joseph Campbell
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Religon is misunderstood mythology
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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The familiar life horizon has been outgrown: the old concepts, ideals, and emotional patterns no longer fit the time for the passing of a threshold is at hand.
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
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Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.
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.
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All we really want to do is dance.
Joseph Campbell