Joseph Campbell Quotes

Life is without meaning.
You bring the meaning to it.
The meaning of life is
whatever you ascribe it to be.
Being alive is the meaning.
- Joseph Campbell

The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

Please sign up for my Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote email using the form below.
Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you
that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.
- Joseph Campbell

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

God is Within You!
You yourself are the creator.
If you find that place within you
from which you brought this thing about,
you will be able to live with it and affirm it,
perhaps even enjoy it, as your life.
- Joseph Campbell

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

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea.
It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience,
something that never has been and never could
have been experienced by anyone else.
- Joseph Campbell

When you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living.
When you can see that, you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,
and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.
- Joseph Campbell

I think the person who takes a job in order to live -
that is to say, for the money -
has turned himself into a slave.
- Joseph Campbell

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

One way or another, we all have to find
what best fosters the flowering of our humanity
in this contemporary life,
and dedicate ourselves to that.
- Joseph Campbell

When people get married because they think
it's a long-time love affair,
they'll be divorced very soon,
because all love affairs end in disappointment.
But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.
- Joseph Campbell

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.
- Joseph Campbell

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

Every religion is true one way or another.
It is true when understood metaphorically.
But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors,
interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.
- Joseph Campbell

The unknown is like the darkness of a cave -
it can be illuminated by the brief light
of one adventurer's small candle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We fear the unknown,
perhaps more than we fear anything else,
and yet we are, at heart, adventurers.
We seek to expand our realm of knowledge and dominion.
Perhaps we are attempting to overcome and crush the unknown,
but our duel with the unknown is such a one-sided clash
that we must know in our hearts
that our adventure is no more than a child's game.
Perhaps we hope that the unknown
is like the darkness of a cave
and that the brief light of our adventurer's candle
can illuminate the entire cave.
Nonetheless, the path of the adventurer
is a path of joy, while the way of fear is one of suffering.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Know that the greatest fear is fear of the unknown.
Seek to meet the unknown with courage and a sense of adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The challenge before us is to savor the unknown
and delight in the taste of possibility.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

We all have an instinctive fear of the unseen.
Make a conscious effort to discover
and embrace the unfamiliar -
to view the unknown not as a lurking monster,
but as a glorious adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A single event can awaken a stranger totally unknown to us.
To live is to be slowly born.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

What if it were only an illusion?
Perhaps life is not as threatening as it appears.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our serenity
is our fear of the future -
our fear of the unknown.
Perhaps, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said,
"The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past
have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.
- George S. Patton

The most painful and debilitating fear is fear of the unknown.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Faith:
When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:
...
There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
or, you will be taught how to fly
- Patrick Overton - from his book of poems: The Leaning Tree, 1975
[Widely mis-attributed to Barbara J. Winter, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and others]

I honor you, Hero, for you do not play to the crowd.
You play to your own soul.
An audience of one fills the house with its appreciation and applause.
Others follow you, and may attempt to emulate you,
but that is not why you are a hero.
Fame may smile upon you, or it may not.
The world may cheer your name, or you may be the unknown warrior
who rescued comrades in battle,
or taught a young girl how to shed tears of joy.
Whatever you did, you did not do for fame.
If you had, you would not be a Hero.
You are a Hero for your bold courageous inspired action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today is a day to choose a different path.
Enjoy the unknown way - one step at a time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The greatest battle of all is simply... Life.
This is no child's game. This is the big one -
the Super Bowl - the Game of all games.
The rules of Life are unwritten and unknown.
Perhaps, one could say that there are no rules.
The Judge has ultimate power.
She can call the game at any time - for any reason.
The penalties in the Game are completely arbitrary -
in both timing and severity.
Penalty for what, we ask?
The Judge is silent.
How can I win the Game?
"You can never win," comes the answer,
"So just take pleasure in playing the Game."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We stand today on the edge of a new frontier ...
a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils -
a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.
- John F. Kennedy

Fear of the unknown is
the greatest fear of humankind,
and death the greatest unknown.
Acknowledging these doubts and the fears
is a powerful beginning.
It is liberating to say,
"Yes, I don't know, and yes, I am afraid."
Beyond that, the path to happiness
lies in living in the moment -
enjoying what you are doing today.
You don't need a reason to be happy,
just a choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Great men, unknown to their generation,
have their fame among the great who have preceded them,
and all true worldly fame subsides
from their high estimate beyond the stars.
- Henry David Thoreau

There is not a truth existing which I fear...
or would wish unknown to the whole world.
- Thomas Jefferson

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
- Reinhold Niebuhr (Serenity Prayer)

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu

One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu

If you don't know where you're going,
any road will take you there.
- Lewis Carroll
(Alice in Wonderland)

This is my wish for you:
Comfort on difficult days,
Smiles when sadness intrudes,
Rainbows to follow the clouds,
Laughter to kiss your lips,
Sunsets to warm your heart,
Hugs when spirits sag,
Beauty for your eyes to see,
Friendships to brighten your being,
Faith so that you can believe,
Confidence for when you doubt,
Courage to know yourself,
Patience to accept the truth,
Love to complete your life.
- Anonymous

At the center of your being you have the answer;
you know who you are and you know what you want.
- Lao Tzu

To know God, watch a butterfly return to the same tree -
after a year and a thousand miles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
- Mark Twain (attributed)

To leave the world a bit better ...
to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Once you know yourself as a genuine seeker,
and when your own inner chamber is quite enlightened,
then comes the natural unfoldment of pure love and compassion
and a genuine desire to serve others.
- Rod Stryker

Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Happiness blooms
in the presence of self-respect
and the absence of ego.
Love yourself.
Love everyone around you.
Love everyone in the whole world.
Know that your own life is of infinite importance,
as is every other life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you're gonna get.
- the movie Forrest Gump

Know the power and the peace of saying,
"I love you just the way you are."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You cannot do a kindness too soon,
for you never know how soon it will be too late.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition -
they somehow already know what you truly want to become.
- Steve Jobs

Please sign up on the form below to receive
my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.

May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Joseph Campbell Quotes

Encouraging Quotes