People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Joseph CampbellI don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.
Joseph CampbellWhen you are in accord with nature, nature will yield its bounty. This is something that is coming up in our own consciousness now...recognizi ng that by violating the environment in which we are living, we are really cutting off the energy and source of our own living. And itโs this sense of accord, so that living properly in relation to what has to be done in this world one fosters the vitality of the environment.
Joseph CampbellMyths are so intimately bound to culture, time, and place that unless the symbols, the metaphors, are kept alive by constant recreation through the arts, the life just slips away from them.
Joseph CampbellThere is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder and discovering that youโre on the wrong wall.
Joseph CampbellHeinrich Zimmerhe had a little saying : The best things cant be told - because they are transcendent, inexpressible truths. The second best are misunderstood : myths, which are metaphoric attempts to point to the way toward the first. And the third best have to do with history, science, biography, and so on. The only kind of talking that can be understood is this last kind.
Joseph Campbell