The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. The objective world remains what it was, but, because of a shift of emphasis within the subject, is beheld as though transformed. Where formerly life and death contended, now enduring being is made manifest-as indifferent to the accidents of time as water boiling in a pot is to the destiny of a bubble, or as the cosmos to the appearance and disappearance of a galaxy of stars.
Joseph CampbellShakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And thatโs what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.
Joseph CampbellBoth the artist and the lover know that perfection is not loveable. It is the clumsiness of a fault that makes a person lovable.
Joseph CampbellIt may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is. (60).
Joseph Campbell