Joseph Campbell
American writer, scholar of comparative mythology, and one of the most influential interpreters of the world's spiritual traditions in the twentieth century. Born in 1904 in White Plains, New York, he taught literature at Sarah Lawrence College for nearly four decades and produced a body of work — most famously The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) and the four-volume Masks of God (1959-1968) — that mapped the deep structural unity beneath the world's mythologies. His PBS conversation series with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (1988), introduced his work to millions and made phrases like 'follow your bliss' and 'the hero's journey' part of common cultural vocabulary. George Lucas's Star Wars, in Lucas's own telling, was structured directly on Campbell's monomyth. He died in 1987 in Honolulu.
quotes in library
Quotes by Joseph Campbell
105 quotes“What is it that, when you're following it, you're really happy? Find out what gives you that experience.”
“In the cave you fear to enter, the gold you seek waits.”
“The hero is one who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.”
“Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it.”
“The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be.”
“To be human is to be in possession of a soul.”
“Love is the burning point of life.”
“There is a perfect formula for failure: try to please everyone.”
“Awe is the salve that will heal our eyes.”
“Even the gods of the past are reborn through us.”
“In every loss, there is a gain. In every gain, there is a loss.”
“Life has no purpose. You are its purpose.”
“The mystic is one who has experienced the inexpressible.”
“To follow your bliss is to enter into the mystery.”
“The hero is the man of self-achieved submission.”
“In the end, the only authority is your own experience.”
“There is no perfect path. Every path is right if you walk it with full presence.”
“In the depths of myth, the symbols speak directly to the unconscious.”
“You become a hero by acting like one — by walking the path.”
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