Joseph Campbell Quotes

These last few days I've felt Godless. I've felt cleaner, less muddled, less blind. I still believe in a God. But he's so remote, so cold, so mathematical. I see that we have to live as if there is no God. Prayer and worship and singing hymns-all silly and useless.

I used to go to church. I even went through a rather intense religious period when I was sixteen. But the idea of an everlasting life -- a never-ending banquet, as a stupid visiting minister to our church once appallingly described it -- filled me with a greater terror than the concept of extinction.

God is dethroned; and although the incognizant masses are tardy in realizing the event, they feel the icy draught caused by that vacancy. Man enters upon a spiritual ice age; the established churches can no longer provide more than Eskimo huts where their shivering flock huddles together.

Some believe in Jesus, they don't act like they do. Some believe in Mohammed, I don't believe that's true. Cause they do believe in money, and gold is what it's for, all the gold can't buy no peace of mind in a world that don't believe in nothing anymore.

I also like some of Joel Osteen's work. I think he's now doing a book about one of my favorite sermons of his, "The Power of 'I Am.' " I just love that sermon.

Something was badly amiss with the spiritual life of the planet...Too many demons inside people claiming to believe in God.

The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, and religious scripture a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.

Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don't know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me.

The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear.

Without temptations, it is not possible to learn the wisdom of the Spirit. It is not possible that Divine love be strengthened in your soul. Before temptations, a man prays to God as a stranger. When temptations are allowed to come by the love of God, and he does not give in to them, then he stands before God as a sincere friend. For in fulfilling the will of God, he has made war on the enemy of God and conquered him.

Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status. This is the result of an old and excellent religious civilization. This evolution to a higher spiritual state is possible only through discipline and education.

The tragic reality of today is reflected in the true plight of our spiritual existence. We are spineless and cannot stand straight.

Heaven-as you call it-is nowhere. Let's just put some space between the w and the h in that word and you'll see that heaven is now...here.

I have no problem with religion, and I grew up with a strong curiosity about spiritual matters, but my searching took me away from church and community worship to the internal journey. Before my recovery began, I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter.

There is nothing scary about life if you are not attached to results.

How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will.

All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.

There is a spiritual aspect to our lives - when we give, we receive-when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them!

When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.

You claim that any promise which gives you the power, and guarantees you the love of God must be the false promise of the devil.

Man can no longer live his life for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship to the universe.

Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst.

Worry is just about the worst form of mental activity there is-next to hate, which is deeply self destructive. Worry is pointless. It is wasted mental energy. It also creates bio-chemical reactions which harm the body, producing everything from indigestion to coronary arrest, and a multitude of things in between.

God requires not the doing of the commandments for their own sake, but the correction of the soul, for whose sake He established the commandments.

Don't fear the light within. May it ignite the Sacred Flame in your soul.