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
live-life writing waiting
If you follow your bliss you will find a path laid out before you that has been waiting for you all along and you will begin to live the life you ought to be living.
inspirational art writing
Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted.
book writing mean
You know, I didn't write my books for critics and scholars. I wrote them for students and artists. When I hear how much my work has meant to them--well, I can't tell you how happy that makes me. That means that this great stuff of myth, which I have been so privileged to work with, will be kept alive for a whole new generation. That's the function of the artists, you know, to reinterpret the old stories and make them come alive again, in poetry, painting, and now in movies.
book reading writing
My writing is of a very different kind from anything I've heard about. All this mythological material is out there, a big gathering of stuff, and I have been reading it for some forty- or fifty-odd years. There are various ways of handling that. The most common is to put the material together and publish a scholarly book about it. But when I'm writing, I try to get a sense of an experiential relationship to the material. In fact, I can't write unless that happens ... I don't write unless the stuff is really working on me, and my selection of material depends on what works.
inspirational writing years
Now I found it in writing sentences. You can write that sentence in a way that you would have written it last year. Or you can write it in the way of the exquisite nuance that is sriting in your mind now. But that takes a lot of ... waiting for the right word to come.
conquered demons shut vision
Our demons are out own limitations, which shut us off from the realization of the ubiquity of the spirit...each of these demons is conquered in a vision quest.
experience innermost life meaning people physical plane purely resonance seeking within
People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive.
contract strike workers
We do not think the Boeing IAM workers will strike when their contract expires on Sept. 2.
law realize second survival
At such moments, you realize that you and the other are, in fact, one. It's a big realization. Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one.
heroism matter step
Heroism is a matter of integrity--becoming more and more at each step ourselves.
destiny enemies love thine
Love thine enemies because they are the instruments to your destiny.
sacrifice unity
When you make a sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship.
anyone doors follow open
When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else.
depth consciousness myth
A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life.