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The hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman, the figure in a myth or the dreamer of a dream discovers and assimilates his opposite (his own unsuspected self) either by swallowing it or by being swallowed.

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
Hero
Swallowed
Figures
Discovers
Either
Goddess
Whether
Dreamer
Woman
Opposite
Dream
Myth
Assimilates
Self
Opposites
Unsuspected
Men
Figure
Swallowing

More quotes by Joseph Campbell

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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
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There is an Indian fable of three beings who drank from a river: one was a god, and he drank ambrosia one was a man, and he drank water and one was a demon, and he drank filth. What you get is a function of your own consciousness.
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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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Successful marriage is leading innovative lives together, being open, non-programmed. It’s a free fall: how you handle each new thing as it comes along. As a drop of oil on the sea, you must float, using intellect and compassion to ride the waves.
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The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight. Edgar Cayce made the same observation in his readings
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The last act in the biography of the hero is that of the death or departure.
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Mythology is often defined as 'other peoples' religions', religion can be thought of as misinterpreted mythology.
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The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.
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Every religion, every mythology is true in this sense: It is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery.
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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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It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.
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There is no security in following the call to adventure.
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The myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth.
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The perfect human being is uninteresting.
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One looks, looks long, and the world comes in.
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How do you find the divine power in yourself? The word enthusiasm means 'filled with a god,' so what makes you enthusiastic? Follow it. So I have a little word: follow your bliss. The bliss is the message of God to yourself. That's where your life is.
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What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light, or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle?
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The conquest of fear yields the courage of life. That is the cardinal initiation of every heroic adventure-- fearlessness and achievement.
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The mighty hero of extraordinary powers, able to lift Mount Govardhan on a finger, and to fill himself with the terrible glory of the universe, is each of us: not the physical self visible in the mirror, but the King within.
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God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, 'Ah!
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