938 Quotes by Joseph Campbell

The Navajo have that wonderful image of what they call the pollen path. The Navajo say, ‘Oh, beauty before me, beauty behind me, beauty to the right of me, beauty to the left of me, beauty above me, beauty below me, I’m on the pollen path.’

To translate knowledge and information into experience: that seems to be the function of literature and art.

Myth is what we call other people’s religion.

It is a basic idea of practically every war mythology that the enemy is a monster and that in killing him one is protecting the only truly valuable order of human life on earth, which is that, of course, of one’s own people.

You’ve got to say yes to this miracle of life as it is, not on condition that it follow your rules.

We have today to learn to get back into accord with the wisdom of nature and realize again our brotherhood with the animals and with the water and the sea.

The conquest of fear yields the courage of life. That is the cardinal initiation of every heroic adventure – fearlessness and achievement.

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.

Every step they took, she told him something he’d never known before; and yet it always seemed, the moment she’d said it, as if he had known it all his life.