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Joseph Campbell Quotes - Page 13

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Economics and politics are the governing powers of life today, and that's why everything is so screwy.

Economics and politics are the governing powers of life today, and that's why everything is so screwy.

Joseph Campbell
Today, Economics, Governing
Joseph Campbell, Phil Cousineau, Stuart L. Brown (1990). “The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work”, p.167, New World Library

Where there is a way or path, it is someone else's. Each of us has to find his own way.

Joseph Campbell
Way, Path

Love your enemies, for they determine who you are.

Joseph Campbell
Love You, Enemy, Determine

Oh my God, does art engender humanity? It awakens your humanity. But humanity has nothing to do with political theory. Political theory is in the interests of one group of humanity, or one ideal for humanity. But humanity-my heavens, that's what proper art renders. We have a paradox. Going into the deepest aspects of inner space connects you with something that is the most vital for the outer realm.

Joseph Campbell
Art, Space, Political

When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.

Joseph Campbell
Hero, Thinking, Self
Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

Seek to know the power that is within you.

Joseph Campbell
Power, Knows, Within You

Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and door will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

Joseph Campbell
Positive, Rest In Peace, Rip
"The Power of Myth". Book by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers edited by Betty Sue Flowers, 1988.

In the Orient the ultimate divine mystery is sought beyond all human categories of thought and feeling, beyond names and forms, and absolutely beyond any such concept as of a merciful or wrathful personality, chooser of one people over another, comforter of folk who pray, and destroyer of those who do not. Such anthropomorphic attributions of human sentiments and thoughts to a mystery beyond thought is-from the point of view of Indian thought-a style of religion for children.

Joseph Campbell
Children, Views, Names
Joseph Campbell (2011). “Myths to Live By”, p.53, Joseph Campbell Foundation

Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion.

Joseph Campbell
Vocabulary, Coercion, Reason
Joseph Campbell (1968). “The Masks of God: Creative Mythology”

The night of December 25, to which date the Nativity of Christ was ultimately assigned, was exactly that of the birth of the Persian savior Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born the night of the winter solstice (then dated December 25) at midnight, the instant of the turn of the year from increasing darkness to light.

Joseph Campbell
Winter, Night, Years
Joseph Campbell, M. J. Abadie (1981). “The Mythic Image”, p.33, Princeton University Press

One great thing about growing old is that nothing is going to lead to anything. Everything is of the moment.

Joseph Campbell
Growing, Moments, Great Things

It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth.

Joseph Campbell
Dream, Art, Philosophy
Joseph Campbell (2008). “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, p.1, New World Library

A bit of advice Given to a young Native American At the time of his initiation: As you go the way of life, You will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Military, Native American

‎"Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn't matter what his name is."

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, God, Faith
Joseph Campbell (2009). “Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation: Easyread Large Edition”, p.14, ReadHowYouWant.com

......the interesting thing was that the Roman Catholic monks and the Buddhist monks had no trouble understanding each other. Each of them was seeking the same experience and knew that the experience was incommunicable. The communication is only an effort to bring the hearer to the edge of the abyss; it is a signpost, not the thing itself. But the secular clergy reads the communication and gets stuck with the letter, and that's where you have the conflict.

Joseph Campbell
Buddhist, Communication, Interesting
Joseph Campbell (2009). “Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation: Easyread Large Edition”, p.28, ReadHowYouWant.com

I prefer the gradual path My feeling is that mythic forms reveal themselves gradually in the course of your life if you know what they are and how to pay attention to their emergence. My own initiation into the mythic depths of the unconscious has been through the mind, through the books that surround me in this library. I have recognized in my quest all the stages of the hero's journey. I had my calls to adventure, my guides, demons, and illuminations.

Joseph Campbell
Book, Hero, Adventure

There's always the possibility of a fiasco. But there's also the possibility of bliss.

Joseph Campbell
Bliss, Possibility, Fiasco
Joseph Campbell, David Kudler (2004). “Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation”, p.133, New World Library

In choosing your god, you choose your way of looking at the universe. There are plenty of Gods. Choose yours.

Joseph Campbell
Way, Plenty, You Choose

Life is but a mask worn on the face of death. And is death, then, but another mask? 'How many can say,' asks the Aztec poet, 'that there is, or is not, a truth beyond?'

Joseph Campbell
Aztec, Faces, Life Is
Joseph Campbell, M. J. Abadie (1981). “The Mythic Image”, p.160, Princeton University Press

Life, in both its knowing and its doing, has become today a "free fall," so to say, into the next minute, into the future. So that, whereas, formerly, those not wishing to hazard the adventure of an individual life could rest within the pale of a comfortably guaranteed social order, today all the walls have burst. It is not left to us to chooseto hazard the adventure of an unprecedented life: adventure is upon us, like a tidal wave.

Joseph Campbell
Wall, Fall, Adventure
Joseph Campbell (1988). “Myths, dreams, and religion”, Spring Pubns

What we're learning in our schools is not the wisdom of life. We're learning technologies, we're getting information. There's a curious reluctance on the part of faculties to indicate the life values of their subjects.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, School, Technology
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.11, Anchor

The process of nature cannot be evil.

Joseph Campbell
Evil, Process
Joseph Campbell (2010). “Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor”, p.23, ReadHowYouWant.com

A real artist is the one who has learned to recognize and to render... the 'radiance' of all things as an epiphany or showing forth of the truth.

Joseph Campbell
Real, Artist, Radiance

Christianity isn’t moving people’s lives today. What’s moving people’s lives is the stock market and the baseball scores. What are people excited about? It’s a totally materialistic level that has taken over the world. There isn’t even an ideal that anybody’s fighting for.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Baseball, Moving

When I was in India I met and conversed briefly with Shri Atmananda Guru of Trivandrum, and the question he gave me to ponder was this: 'Where are you between two thoughts?

Joseph Campbell
Two, India, Guru

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