Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts -- but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message.
Joseph CampbellIf you want to know what a given society believes in, look at what its largest buildings are devoted to.
Joseph CampbellFollow your bliss and don't be afraid, and door will open where you didn't know they were going to be.
Joseph CampbellThere'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.
Joseph CampbellThrough dreams a door is opened to mythology, since myths are of the nature of dreams, and that, as dreams arise from an inward world unknown to waking consciousness, so do myths: so, indeed, does life.
Joseph CampbellThe unfolding through time of all things from one is the simple message, finally, of every one of the creation myths reproduced in the pages of these volumes-including that of our contemporary biological view, which becomes an effective mythic image the moment we recognize its own inner mystery. By the same magic, every god that is dead can be conjured again to life, as any fragment of rock from a hillside, set respectfully in a garden, will arrest the eye.
Joseph Campbell