Power Of Myth Quotes:

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

- Joseph Campbell

source: TV Mini-Series "The Power of Myth" ("Episode 2", Chapter 4), 1988.

topic: Inspirational, Life, Reality, Resonance, Power Of Myth

If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Work, Doors, Waiting For You, Self Actualization

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Appreciation, Being Yourself, Power Of Myth, Becoming Who You Are

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

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Life, Spiritual, Life Goal, Sacred Space

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Morning, Might, Rooms, Sacred Places, Power Of Myth

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us, the labyrinth is fully known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Hero, Adventure, Journeys And Paths, Abomination

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Self Improvement, Meaning Of Life, Meaning Life, What Is The Meaning Of Life

I don’t think there is any such thing as an ordinary mortal. Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experience of life. All he has to do is recognize it and then cultivate it and get going with it. I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I’ve never met an ordinary man, woman, or child.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

topic: Life, Children, Women, Individual Differences, Ordinary People

Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Dream, Business, Power Of Myth, Creation Myths

Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Life, Happiness, Joy And Pain, Joyful Heart

All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Heaven, Hell, Power Of Myth, Himalayas

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

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Fall, Gold, Power Of Myth, Follow Your Bliss

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Technology, Religion, Computer Science, Old Technology

We're not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Journey, World, Power Of Myth, Follow Your Bliss

I think it's important to live life with a knowledge of its mystery, and of your own mystery.

- Joseph Campbell

source: "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth". TV Mini-Series, 1988.

topic: Live Life, Thinking, Important, Power Of Myth

Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Life, Arriving, Power Of Myth, Follow Your Bliss

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

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Truth, Important, Power Of Myth, Follow Your Bliss

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Life, Inspiring, Paving The Way, Following Your Own Path

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Life, Faith, Meaningful Work, Power Of Myth

At first you might find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred space and use it, eventually something will happen. Your sacred space is where you find yourself again and again.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Yoga, Space, Finding Yourself, Sacred Places, Sacred Space

We need myths that will identify the individual not with his local group but with the planet.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Groups, Needs, Individual, Power Of Myth, Locals

There's nothing militant about Jesus. I don't read anything like that in any of the gospels. Peter drew his sword and cut off the servant's ear, and Jesus said, "Put back thy sword, Peter." But Peter has had his sword out and at work ever since.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

topic: Jesus, Cutting, Ears, Power Of Myth

The inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meets the outer world. And the outer world is the field of your incarnation. That’s where you are. You’ve got to keep both going. As Novalis said, ‘The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.68, Anchor

topic: Soul, World, Requirements, Inner World, Power Of Myth

What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power of a value system that functions in human life and in the universe.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.28, Anchor

topic: Inspirational, God, Function, Power Of Myth, Personification

Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Technology, Ethos, Power Of Myth

Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And that’s what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.68, Anchor

topic: Nature, Art, Mirrors, Power Of Myth

The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here is the place to have the experience.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Heaven, Eternity, Eternity Of Life, Power Of Myth

I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met an ordinary man, woman or child.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Children, Men, Power Of Myth, Follow Your Bliss

If you follow your bliss...the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

topic: Inspirational, Careers, Bliss, Careers And Life, Follow Your Passion

All religions are true but none are literal.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Power Of Myth, Hero Journey

Our life evokes our character and you find out more about yourself as you go on.

- Joseph Campbell

source: TV Mini-Series "The Power of Myth" ("Episode 1", Chapter 12), 1988.

topic: Character, Goes On, Evoke, Power Of Myth

Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Religious, Atheist, Power Of Myth, Religious Traditions

When your mind is simply trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.68, Anchor

topic: Understanding, Mind, Mythology, Trapped, Power Of Myth

When you follow your bliss, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

topic: Doors, People, Fields, Power Of Myth, Follow Your Bliss

The demon that you can swallow gives you it’s power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

topic: Inspirational, Pain, Giving, Power Of Myth, Amor Fati

Whether you call someone a hero or a monster is all relative to where the focus of your consciousness may be.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.156, Anchor

topic: Hero, Focus, Monsters, Power Of Myth

I don’t think there’s any such thing as male objectification…I think that word exists only with women because there are societal pressures for them to behave a certain way and to look a certain way. Someone put it to me once: Women are sex objects and men are success objects. That was really interesting to me.

- Joe Manganiello

topic: Sex, Thinking, Men, Objectification, Complete Happiness

Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Buddhist, Lying, Mind, Well Said, Power Of Myth

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.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Nice, Book, Power Of Myth, Follow Your Bliss

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.

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspirational, Happiness, Wisdom, Forget The Past, Power Of Myth

For we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heros of all time have gone before us.

- Joseph Campbell

source: Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.151, Anchor

topic: Inspirational, Hero, Adventure, Abomination, Power Of Myth

This is the power of myth: that we can experience invisible spiritual realities and truths greater than visible, material things in story form.

- John Granger

source: John Granger (2010). “How Harry Cast His Spell: The Meaning Behind the Mania for J. K. Rowling's Bestselling Books”, p.94, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

topic: Spiritual, Reality, Stories, Power Of Myth