Quote

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.

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
Myth
Poetry
Muses
Art
Participating
Doe
Homeland
Think
Muse
Thinking
Mythology
Life
Participation
Poem

More quotes by 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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Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn't matter what his name is.
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Respect your curses, for they are the instruments of your destiny.
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Mythology is the womb of mankind's initiation to life and death.
Joseph Campbell
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If you are on the right path you will find that invisible hands are helping.
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Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.
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 eternal principle, which never was born, never will die: it is in all things: it is in you now. You are the wave on the face of the ocean. When the wave is gone, is the water gone? Has anything happened? Nothing has happened. It is a play, a game, a dance.
Joseph Campbell
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How does the ordinary person come to the transcendent? For a start, I would say, study poetry. Learn how to read a poem. You need not have the experience to get the message, or at least some indication of the message. It may come gradually. (92)
Joseph Campbell
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Eternity is not future or past. Eternity is a dimension of now. It is a dimension of the human spirit -- which is eternal. Find that eternal dimension in yourself, and you will ride through time, and throughout the whole length of your days.
Joseph Campbell
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The myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth.
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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Dream is personalized myth, myth is depersonalized dream both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche. But in the dream the forms are quirked by the peculiar troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problem and solutions shown are directly valid for all mankind.
Joseph Campbell
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The Garden is a metaphor for the following: our minds, and our thinking in terms of pairs of opposites--man and woman, good and evil--are as holy as that of a god. (50)
Joseph Campbell
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Poets and artists who speak of the mystery are rare.
Joseph Campbell
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If you have a sacred place and use it, take advantage of it, something will happen.
Joseph Campbell
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One great thing about growing old is that nothing is going to lead to anything. Everything is of the moment.
Joseph Campbell
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Mythologies, in other words, mythologies and religions are great poems and, when recognized as such, point infallibly through things and events to the ubiquity of a
Joseph Campbell
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The myth is the public domain and the dream is the private myth. If your private myth, your dream, happens to coincide with that of the society, you are in good accord with your group. If it isn't, you've got a long adventure in the dark forest ahead of you.
Joseph Campbell
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Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
Joseph Campbell