Quote

The function of artists is the mythologization of the world.

Joseph Campbell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Artist
World
Artists
Function

More quotes by Joseph Campbell

Image
The folktale is the primer of the picture-language of the soul.
Joseph Campbell
Image
I don't need faith. I have experience.
Joseph Campbell
Image
Out of perfection nothing can be made. Every process involves breaking something up.
Joseph Campbell
Image
Man actually needs the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.
Joseph Campbell
Image
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
Image
The inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meets the outer world. And the outer world is the field of your incarnation. That’s where you are. You’ve got to keep both going. As Novalis said, ‘The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet.
Joseph Campbell
Image
And so Galahad decided that it would be a disgrace to set off on a quest with the other knights. Alone he would enter the dark forest where there was no path. This is the myth of The Hero's Journey.
Joseph Campbell
Image
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come. -
Joseph Campbell
Image
God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.
Joseph Campbell
Image
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.
Joseph Campbell
Image
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
Image
Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. Negativism to the pain and ferocity of life is negativism to life. We are not there until we can say 'yea' to it all.
Joseph Campbell
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If you want to find out what it means to have a society without any rituals, read the New York Times.
Joseph Campbell
Image
The way to find out about your happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you really are happy-not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what I call following your bliss.
Joseph Campbell
Image
Wisdom and foolishness are practically the same. Both are indifferent to the opinions of the world
Joseph Campbell
Image
As a white candle / In a holy place, / So is the beauty / Of an aged face
Joseph Campbell
Image
Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.
Joseph Campbell
Image
The priests used to say that faith can move mountains, and nobody believed them. Today the scientists say that they can level mountains, and nobody doubts them.
Joseph Campbell