Quotes by Joseph Campbell

“When you translate the Bible with excessive literalism, you demythologize it. The possibility of a convincing reference to the individual's own spiritual experience is lost. (111)”

“The images of Myth are reflections of Spiritual and Depth potentialities of every one of us. Through contemplating those we evoke those powers in our own lives to operate through ourselves.”

“Mythology is composed by poets out of their insights and realizations. Mythologies are not invented they are found. You can no more tell us what your dream is going to be tonight than we can invent...”

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

“[T]he experience of mystery comes not from expecting it but through yielding all your programs, because your programs are based on fear and desire. Drop them and the radiance comes. (16)”

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”

“If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.”

“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”

“You enter the forestat the darkest point,where there is no path.Where there is a way or path,it is someone else's path.You are not on your own path.If you follow someone else's way,you are not goin...”

“The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how i...”

“We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”

“The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater lifes pain, the greater lifes reply.”

“People say that what were all seeking is a meaning for life. I dont think thats what were really seeking. I think that what were seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experience...”

“Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.”

“Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.”

“Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold.”

“You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.”

“When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was nev...”

“It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is. (60).”