46 quotes
It's only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world.
Comments on a passage in Where the Wild Things Are (1963)
The achievement of the hero is one that he is ready for and it's really a manifestation of his character.
The Power of Myth (1988)
Wherever the hero may wander, whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence — for he has the perfected eye to see. There is no separateness.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking.
The Power of Myth (1988)
I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.
I think it's important to live life with a knowledge of its mystery, and of your own mystery.
The Power of Myth (1988)
In the absence of an effective general mythology, each of us has his private, unrecognized, rudimentary, yet secretly potent pantheon of dreams.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
It's a wonderful, wonderful opera, except that it hurts.
The Power of Myth (1988)
We are standing on a whale fishing for minnows.
The Power of Myth (1988)
Our life evokes our character and you find out more about yourself as you go on.
The Power of Myth (1988)
Find a place where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living (1991)
Heresy is the life of a mythology, and orthodoxy is the death.
Mythology and the Individual (1997)
This divorce this is a fatal thing, and a very unfortunate thing, and a totally unnecessary thing.
Mythology and the Individual (1997)
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living (1991)
The modern hero-deed must be that of questing to bring to light again the lost Atlantis of the co-ordinated soul.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
The Power of Myth (1988)
But in the dream the forms are quirked by the peculiar troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problem and solutions shown are directly valid for all mankind.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
Economics is itself a function of aspiration. It’s what people aspire to that creates the field in which economics works.
Mythology and the Individual (1997)
You must remember: all of the great traditions, and little traditions, in their own time were scientifically correct. That is to say, they were correct in terms of the scientific image of that age.
Mythology and the Individual (1997)