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There is no make-believe about heaven, future bliss, and compensation, to alleviate the bitter majesty, but only utter darkness, the void of unfulfillment, to receive and eat back the lives that have been tossed forth from the womb only to fail.

— Joseph Campbell The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

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More quotes by Joseph Campbell

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)

All Joseph Campbell quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Joseph Campbell (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.