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Joseph Campbell Quotes - Page 21

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It is not only that there is no hiding place for the gods from the searching telescope and microscope; there is no such society any more as the gods once supported.

It is not only that there is no hiding place for the gods from the searching telescope and microscope; there is no such society any more as the gods once supported.

Joseph Campbell
Telescopes, Hiding, Microscopes
Joseph Campbell (2008). “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, p.334, New World Library

One looks, looks long, and the world comes in.

Joseph Campbell
Long, Vision, Looks
Joseph Campbell (2011). “Myths to Live By”, p.68, Joseph Campbell Foundation

You yourself are participating in the evil, or you are not alive. Whatever you do is evil for somebody. This is one of the ironies of the whole creation.

Joseph Campbell
Evil, Alive, Irony
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.80, Anchor

If you can see your path clearly in front of you, it's probably someone else's.

Joseph Campbell
Path, Ifs, Fronts

Society has provided [children] no rituals by which they become members of the tribe, of the community. All children need to be twice born, to learn to function rationally in the present world, leaving childhood behind.

Joseph Campbell
Children, Childhood, Community
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.9, Anchor

And then he says, "The writer must be true to truth." And that's a killer, because the only way you can describe a human being truly is by describing his imperfections. The perfect human being is uninteresting - the Buddha who leaves the world, you know. It is the imperfections of life that are lovable. And when the writer sends a dart of the true word, it hurts. But it goes with love. This is what Mann called "erotic irony," the love for that which you are killing with your cruel, analytical word.

Joseph Campbell
Hurt, Writing, Perfect
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.3, Anchor

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
Inspirational, Poetry, Ordinary
Joseph Campbell (2001). “Thou Art that: Transforming Religious Metaphor”, p.92, New World Library

The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one's own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting series of deaths and births, but as though one's present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure.

Joseph Campbell
Giving Up, Goal, World
Joseph Campbell (2008). “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, p.49, New World Library

First you must find your trajectory, and then comes the social coordination.

Joseph Campbell
Firsts, Social, Coordination

There's nothing militant about Jesus. I don't read anything like that in any of the gospels. Peter drew his sword and cut off the servant's ear, and Jesus said, "Put back thy sword, Peter." But Peter has had his sword out and at work ever since.

Joseph Campbell
Jesus, Cutting, Ears
Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

The perfect human being is uninteresting-the Buddha who leaves the world, you know. It is the imperfections of life that are lovable.

Joseph Campbell
Perfect, World, Lovable
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.3, Anchor

Modern romance, like Greek tragedy, celebrates the mystery of dismemberment, which is life in time. The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved.

Joseph Campbell
Inspirational, Heart, Yield
Joseph Campbell (2008). “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, p.19, New World Library

If you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it.

Joseph Campbell
World, Want, Helping
Joseph Campbell (2011). “Myths to Live By”, p.59, Joseph Campbell Foundation

...suddenly you hit on something that the student really responds to, you can see the eyes open and the complexion change. The life possibility has opened there. All you can say to yourself is, "I hope this child hangs on to that."

Joseph Campbell
Children, Eye, Students
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.148, Anchor

She was ... the arch personification of the power of Space, Time, and Matter, within whose bound all beings arise and die: the substance of their bodies, configurator of their lives and thoughts, and receiver of their dead. And everything having form or name-including God personified as good or evil, merciful or wrathful-was her child, within her womb.

Joseph Campbell
Children, Names, Space
Joseph Campbell (1991). “The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology”, Penguin Group USA

The fall [of your soul] from perfection into duality...was naturally followed by the discovery of the duality of good and evil...This is the Biblical version of a myth known to many lands.

Joseph Campbell
Fall, Biblical, Discovery

The mind of man, cleansed of secondary and merely temporal concerns, beholds with the radiance of a cleansed mirror a reflection of the rational mind of God.

Joseph Campbell
God, Reflection, Men
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.31, Anchor

If you want to find out what it means to have a society without any rituals, read the New York Times.

Joseph Campbell
New York, Mean, Want
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.8, Anchor

Every people is a chosen people in its own mind. And it is rather amusing that their name for themselves usually means mankind.

Joseph Campbell
Mean, Names, People
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.130, Anchor

The ground of being is the ground of our being, and when we simply turn outward, we see all of these little problems here and there. But, if we look inward, we see that we are the source of them all.

Joseph Campbell
Here And There, Inward, Looks
Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

As a white candle / In a holy place, / So is the beauty / Of an aged face

Joseph Campbell
White, Holy Places, Faces
Irishry (1913) "Old Woman"

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.

Joseph Campbell
Kings, Hero, Mirrors
Joseph Campbell (2008). “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, p.315, New World Library

You can't say life is useless because it ends in the grave.

Joseph Campbell
Useless, Life Is, Ends
Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.165, Anchor

The adventure that the hero is ready for is the one he gets.

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

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.

Joseph Campbell
Brother, Ocean, Hero
Joseph Campbell, M. J. Abadie (1981). “The Mythic Image”, p.7, Princeton University Press

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