Nancy > Nancy's Quotes

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Regrets are illuminations come too late.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

“You enter the forest
at the darkest point,
where there is no path.

Where there is a way or path,
it is someone else's path.

You are not on your own path.

If you follow someone else's way,
you are not going to realize
your potential.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work

“We're in a freefall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.”
― Joseph Campbell, Sukhavati:Place of Bliss

“The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure ”
― Joseph Campbell

“God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, 'Ah!”
― Joseph Campbell

“The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here is the place to have the experience.”
― Joseph Campbell

“The fates lead him who will; him who won't they drag.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”
― Joseph Campbell

“When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”
― Joseph Campbell

“I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money [not for purpose or passion]- has turned himself into a slave.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Preachers err by trying to talk people into belief; better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery.”
― Joseph Campbell

“I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met an ordinary man, woman or child.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth