Joseph Campbell Quotes

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.

There is what I would call the hero journey, the night sea journey, the hero quest, where the individual is going to bring forth in his life something that was never beheld before.

The journey is the reward

The adventure of the hero is the adventure of being alive

The hero's journey is simply who we are as human beings.

What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfillment or the fiasco. There's always the possibility of fiasco. But there's also the possibility of bliss.

The hero wanders, the hero suffers, the hero returns. You are that hero.

The privilege of a lifetime is beingwho you are.The goal of the hero tripdown to the jewel pointis to find those levels in the psychethat open, open, openand finally open to the mystery of your Selfbeing Buddha consciousnessor the Christ.That's the journey.

Questing... is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself.

A good story is always a journey. It is about taking the journey, the people the hero meets along the way and how they change him or her. All stories are journeys. They don't have to be shocking or outrageous: they simply have to be interesting.

The achievement of the hero is one that he is ready for and it's really a manifestation of his character. It's amusing the way in which the landscape and conditions of the environment match the readiness of the hero. The adventure that he is ready for is the one that he gets.

The journey is the treasure.

A wise man travels to discover himself.

What's a hero, if not for its journey. I think you're going to recontextualize what saving the world means, and I think that you will be satisfied with the stakes. That's all I can say about that.

Adventure is not outside; it is within.

We read books to find out who we are.

Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book.

The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It's usually a cycle, a coming and a returning.

Typically, the hero of the fairy tale achieves a domestic, microcosmic triumph, and the hero of myth a world-historica l, macrocosmic triumph. Whereas the former-the youngest or despised child who becomes the master of extraordinary powers-prevails over his personal oppressors, the latter brings back from his adventure the means for the regeneration of his society as a whole.

The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

The adventure that the hero is ready for is the one he gets.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Your adventure has to be coming out of your own interior. If you are ready for it then doors will open where there were no doors before, and where there would not be doors for anyone else. And you must have courage. It's the call to adventure, which means there is no security, no rules.

Now I am setting out into the unknown. It will take me a long while to work through the grief. There are no shortcuts; it has to be gone through.

A man is never more his single separate self than when he sets out on a journey.