Without passion, men are not willing to pay any price or bear any burden to set the captives free.
Joseph CampbellMy writing is of a very different kind from anything I've heard about. All this mythological material is out there, a big gathering of stuff, and I have been reading it for some forty- or fifty-odd years. There are various ways of handling that. The most common is to put the material together and publish a scholarly book about it. But when I'm writing, I try to get a sense of an experiential relationship to the material. In fact, I can't write unless that happens ... I don't write unless the stuff is really working on me, and my selection of material depends on what works.
Joseph CampbellWhat is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power of a value system that functions in human life and in the universe.
Joseph CampbellChristianity isnโt moving peopleโs lives today. Whatโs moving peopleโs lives is the stock market and the baseball scores. What are people excited about? Itโs a totally materialistic level that has taken over the world. There isnโt even an ideal that anybodyโs fighting for.
Joseph CampbellMen sometimes confess they love war because it puts them in touch with the experience of being alive. In going to the office every day, you don't get that experience, but suddenly in war, you are ripped back into being alive. Life is pain; life is suffering; and life is horror - but, by God, you are alive.
Joseph Campbell