Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life. — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
The function of ritual, as I understand it, is to give form to human life, not in the way of a mere… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human manifestation… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Every religion, every mythology is true in this sense: It is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery. — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power of a value system that functions in human life… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward. — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
You know, when real trouble comes your humanity is awakened. The fundamental human experience is that of compassion. — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
The function of ritual... is to give form to the human life, not in the way of a mere surface arrangement, but… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
Eternity is not future or past. Eternity is a dimension of now. It is a dimension of the human spirit -- which… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
But the makers of legend have seldom rested content to regard the world's great heroes as mere human beings who broke past… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
The psyche is the inward experience of the human body, which is essentially the same in all human beings, with the same… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share 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… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
The principle of compassion is that which converts disillusionment into a participatory companionship. This is the basic love, the charity, that turns… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
Myths are the world's dreams. They are archetypal dreams and deal with great human problems. Myths and dreams come from the same… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
There are something like 18 billion cells in the brain alone. There are no two brains alike; there are no two hands… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings, terrors, and deluding images up into the mind - whether in dream, broad… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
In the Orient the ultimate divine mystery is sought beyond all human categories of thought and feeling, beyond names and forms, and… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
Is the god the source, or is the god a human manner of conceiving of the force and energy that supports the… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
Anyone who has had an experience of mystery knows that there is a dimension of the universe that is not that which… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
We are all born as animals and live the life that animals live: we sleep, eat, reproduce, and fight. There is, however,… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
And then he says, "The writer must be true to truth." And that's a killer, because the only way you can describe… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
For if anything is capable of making a poet of a literary man, it is my hometown love of the human, the… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share Image
If a person does not listen to the demands of their own spiritual and heart life and insists on a certain program, you're going… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
The last act in the biography of the hero is that of the death or departure. — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
The eternal principle, which never was born, never will die: it is in all things: it is in you now. You are the wave… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
How do you find the divine power in yourself? The word enthusiasm means 'filled with a god,' so what makes you enthusiastic? Follow it.… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
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… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
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… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
So that's what destiny is: simply the fulfillment of the potentialites of the energies in your own system. — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
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… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
When you follow your bliss a kind of track opens up, that's always been there, waiting for you. And the life that you should… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem… — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
Both the artist and the lover know that perfection is not loveable. It is the clumsiness of a fault that makes a person lovable. — Joseph Campbell Copy Share
