The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. Fear of the unknown is our greatest fear. Many of us would enter a tiger's lair before we would enter a dark cave. While caution is a useful instinct, we lose many opportunities and much of the adventure of life if we fail to support the curious explorer within us.
Joseph CampbellThe function of (heroic) symbols is to give you a sense of Aha! Yes, I know what it is, it's myself.
Joseph CampbellWhen before the beauty of a sunset or a mountain, you pause and exclaim, 'Ah,' you are participating in divinity.
Joseph CampbellMythology tells us that where you stumble, there your treasure is ... The world is a match for us, and weโre a match for the world. And where it seems most challenging lies the greatest invitation to find deeper and greater power in ourselves.
Joseph CampbellLife, in both its knowing and its doing, has become today a "free fall," so to say, into the next minute, into the future. So that, whereas, formerly, those not wishing to hazard the adventure of an individual life could rest within the pale of a comfortably guaranteed social order, today all the walls have burst. It is not left to us to chooseto hazard the adventure of an unprecedented life: adventure is upon us, like a tidal wave.
Joseph CampbellWhen you find a writer who really is saying something to you, read everything that writer has written and you will get more education and depth of understanding out of that than reading a scrap here and a scrap there and elsewhere. Then go to people who influenced that writer, or those who were related to him, and your world builds together in an organic way that is really marvelous.
Joseph Campbell