Quote

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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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
Opportunity
Seek
Enter
Explorers
Fear
Failing
Treasure
Cave
Many
Lose
Useful
Tiger
Much
Loses
Curious
Caves
Would
Greatest
Opportunities
Tigers
Life
Support
Instinct
Caution
Within
Fail
Holds
Lair
Dark
Adventure
Unknown
Explorer

More quotes by Joseph Campbell

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We need myths that will identify the individual not with his local group but with the planet.
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The call to adventure signifies that destiny has summoned the hero.
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All we really want to do is dance.
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There is what I would call the hero journey, the night sea journey, the hero quest, where the individual is going to bring forth in his life something that was never beheld before.
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The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves or have listened only to their neighbors to learn what they ought to do, how they ought to behave, and what the values are they should be living for.
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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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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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It's a shame to waste [the uniqueness that is you], by doing what someone else has done.
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The privilege of a lifetime is beingwho you are.The goal of the hero tripdown to the jewel pointis to find those levels in the psychethat open, open, openand finally open to the mystery of your Selfbeing Buddha consciousnessor the Christ.That's the journey.
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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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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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There is a condescension on the part of the infinite to the mind of man. That is what looks like God.
Joseph Campbell
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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.
Joseph Campbell
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The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.
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The purpose of the journey is compassion. When you have come past the pairs of opposites, you have reached compassion.
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The folktale is the primer of the picture-language of the soul.
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Eternity is not the hereafter...this is it. If you don't get it here you won't get it anywhere.
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I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you.
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The perfect human being is uninteresting-the Buddha who leaves the world, you know. It is the imperfections of life that are lovable.
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Now I found it in writing sentences. You can write that sentence in a way that you would have written it last year. Or you can write it in the way of the exquisite nuance that is sriting in your mind now. But that takes a lot of ... waiting for the right word to come.
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