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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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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
Serve
Oneself
Neither
Ultimate
Quests
Wisdom
Quest
Others
Ecstasy
Power
Aim
Must
Release

More quotes by Joseph Campbell

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The ultimate dreamer is Vishnu floating on the cosmic Milky Ocean, couched upon the coils of the abyssal serpent Ananta, the meaning of whose name is Unending. In the foreground stand the five Pandava brothers, heroes of the epic Mahabharata, with Draupadi, their wife: allegorically, she is the mind and they are the five senses.
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A hero is not a champion of things become, but of things becoming the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo.
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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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Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and its spectacular.
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If you have a sacred place and use it, take advantage of it, something will happen.
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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.
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The last act in the biography of the hero is that of the death or departure.
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Writer’s block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.
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What gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man's imagination?
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One of our problems today is that we are not well acquainted with the literature of the spirit. We re interested in the news of the day and the problems of the hour.
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In the absence of an effective general mythology, each of us has his private, unrecognized, rudimentary, yet secretly potent pantheon of dreams.
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Every act has both good and evil results. The best we can do is lean to the light.
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If we fix on the old, we get stuck.
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Freud tells us to blame our parents for all the shortcomings of our life, Marx tells us to blame the upper class of our society. But the only one to blame is oneself.
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Whatever the hell happens, say, 'This is what I need.'
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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.
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Perhaps some of us have to go through dark and devious ways before we can find the river of peace or the highroad to the soul's destination.
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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 folktale is the primer of the picture-language of the soul.
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We are having experiences all the time which may on occasion render some sense of this, a little intuition of where your bliss is. Grab it. No one can tell you what it is going to be. You have to learn to recognize your own depth.
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