Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbellwas an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: "Follow your bliss."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth26 March 1904
CountryUnited States of America
spiritual clue human-life
Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.
real character individual-choice
The usual marriage in traditional cultures was arranged for by the families. It wasn't a person-to-person decision at all. . . . In the Middle Ages, that was the kind of marriage that was sanctified by the Church. And so the troubadour idea of real person-to-person Amor was very dangerous. . . . It is in direct contradiction to the way of the Church. The word AMOR spelt backwards is ROMA, the Roman Catholic Church, which was justifying marriages that were simply political and social in their character. And so came this movement validating individual choice, what I call following your bliss.
inspirational way path
If there were already a path, it would have to be someone else's; the whole point is to find your own way.
eternity-of-life bliss function
The experience of Eternity right here and now, is the function of life.
shining radiance all-things
The one radiance shines through all things.
warrior approach
The warrior’s approach is to say ‘yes’ to life: ‘yes’ to it all.
winter night light
The night of December 25, to which date the Nativity of Christ was ultimately assigned, was exactly that of the birth of the Persian savior Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born the night of the winter solstice (then dated December 25) at midnight, the instant of the turn of the year from increasing darkness to light.
giving-up goal world
The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one's own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting series of deaths and births, but as though one's present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure.
adventure veils watches
The adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown; the powers that watch at the boundary are dangerous; to deal with them is risky; yet for anyone with competence and courage the danger fades.
soul world requirements
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.
passion men risk
Without passion, men are not willing to pay any price or bear any burden to set the captives free.
inspirational men monsters
Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute. ...
inspirational crush stars
Certainly Star Wars has a valid mythological perspective. It shows the state as a machine and asks, "Is the machine going to crush humanity or serve humanity?" Humanity comes not from the machine but from the heart. What I see in Star Wars is the same problem that Faust gives us:
facts doe heroic
The myth does not point to a fact; the myth points beyond facts to something that informs the fact