Quotes from Joseph Campbell

The goddess is the field that produces forms. She is time and space itself, and the mystery beyond her is beyond all pairs of opposites. So it isn't male and female. Everything is within her, so that the gods are her children.

in this wonderful human brain of ours there has dawned a realization unknown to the other primates. It is that of the individual, conscious of himself as such, and aware that he, and all that he cares for, will one day die.

It is the sword distinguishing that which is enduring from that which is merely passing. The tick-tick-tick of time shuts out eternity. We live in this field of time. But what is reflected in this field is an eternal principle made manifest.

Mythology is not invented rationally; mythology cannot be rationally understood.

In the West we know the military uniform, clerical collar, medical goatee, and judge's wig. But where people are naked, it is the body itself that must be changed.

Each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else's.

But the mystery of the being of your wristwatch will be identical with the mystery of the being of the universe and of yourself as well.

Goethe says that "der Menschheit bestes Tell" ("the best part of man") is this experience, the Schaudern ("shudder")20—it's a kind of noumenal ripple, a realization of how momentary you are in this vast explosion that is the universe, and that's what you get through Dionysus.

To what degree was the intention of the artist what we would call "aesthetic" or to what degree expressive? And to what degree is the art something that they had simply learned to do that way? When a spider makes a beautiful web, the beauty comes out of the spider's nature. It's instinctive beauty. How much of the beauty of our own lives is about the beauty of being alive? How much of it is conscious and intentional? That is

Where you stumble, there your treasure lies.

students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off.

While the boy is talking, an army of ants parades across the floor. The boy laughs when he sees them, and Indra's hair stands on end, and he says to the boy, Why do you laugh? The boy answers. Don't ask unless you are willing to be hurt. Indra says, I ask. Teach. (That, by the way, is a good Oriental idea: you don't teach until you are asked. You don't force your mission down people's throats.)

Qué soy? ¿Soy la lámpara que transporta la luz, o soy la luz y la lámpara es mi vehículo?

When Paris is asked to judge the three goddesses, says Jane Harrison in her wonderful book Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, it amounts to a male put-down of the Goddess. For here were the three major classical goddesses, the three aspects of the one Goddess who is manifested in these three modes, and here is Paris, a languid young man, judging them as though in an Atlantic City beauty contest! And they are vying for his vote by giving him bribes and promises.

I have a strong feeling that the U.S.A. has lost the world, will be used by everybody as a 'fall guy', and is the Dragon to be tricked and plundered: old Fafnir with his gold-horde and grandfatherly willingness to be of help to his own destroyer. My sympathy, this time, is with the Dragon.

We are having experiences all the time which may on occasion render some sense of this, a little intuition of where your bliss is. Grab it. No one can tell you what it is going to be. You have to learn to recognize your own depth.

And through the initiation by the three goddesses who were slighted in the beginning by the Judgment of Paris, he is made ready to return home to his wife, Penelope, and rescue her from the suitors.

Minden szenvedés titkos oka - írta - maga a halandóság, amely egyúttal az élet elsÅ'dleges feltételét is alkotja. Ha igent akarunk mondani az èletre, akkor nem tagadhatjuk meg annak végességét sem.

where do these kids get their myths today? CAMPBELL: They make them up themselves. This is why we have graffiti all over the city. These kids have their own gangs and their own initiations and their own morality, and they're doing the best they can. But they're dangerous because their own laws are not those of the city. They have not been initiated into our society.

Description of the Six Bodily Centers of the Unfolding Serpent Power (?a?-cakra-nir?pana), which has been

beginning of my interest in comparative mythology.

They come from every culture but with timeless themes. CAMPBELL: The themes are timeless, and the inflection is to the culture.

Tienes que distinguir entre razón y pensamiento. Pensar como puedes echar abajo la pared no es razonar (...) La razón tiene que ver con hallar el fundamento del ser y la estructuración fundamental del orden del universo.

When a spider makes a beautiful web, the beauty comes out of the spider's nature. It's instinctive beauty. How much of the beauty of our own lives is about the beauty of being alive? How much of it is conscious and intentional?