Joseph Campbell

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

With the moon walk, the religious myth that sustained these notions could no longer be held. With our view of earthrise, we could see that the earth and the heavens were no longer divided but that the earth is in the heavens. (105)

There seem to be only two kinds of people: Those who think that metaphors are facts, and those who know that they are not facts. Those who know they are not facts are what we call "atheists," and those who think they are facts are "religious." Which group really gets the message?

Myth is what we call other people's religion.

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.

The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination.

One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.

Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.

All religions are true but none are literal.

God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money - has turned himself into a slave.

Computers are like Old Testament gods lots of rules and no mercy.

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.

Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before.

When people get married because they think it's a long-time love affair, they'll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.

Love is a friendship set to music.

Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.