I have found that you have only to take that one step toward the gods, and they will then take ten steps toward you. That step, the heroic first step of the journey, is out of, or over the edge of, your boundaries, and it often must be taken before you know that you will.

Joseph Campbell

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The hero journey is inside of you; tear off the veils and open the mystery of your self.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Journey Mystery Open Tear Yourself
Questing… is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Adventure Ego Fulfill Gift Mystery Yourself
Both the artist and the lover know that perfection is not loveable. It is the clumsiness of a fault that makes a person lovable.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Artist Love Mistake Perfection Person
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Acceptance Let Go Oneself Planning Wait
God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It’s as simple as that.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

God Intellectual Level Simplicity Thinking
Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Sacred Space Yourself
The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Ability Adventure Heart Inspirational Yourself
You can’t have creativity unless you leave behind the bounded, the fixed, all the rules
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Creativity Leaving Rule Yourself
If there were already a path, it would have to be someone else’s; the whole point is to find your own way.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Journey Path Way Yourself
When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Darkness Life Lost Need
Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Dreams Myth Privacy Public
Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human manifestation.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Energy Human Manifestation Open Secret
We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Influence Journey Person Save World
You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Authority Life Maturity Yourself
The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Old Oneself Proverb Skin
It is not society which is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Creativity Guide Heart Save Society
Regrets are illuminations come too late.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Illumination Late Regret
The quest for fire occurred not because anyone knew what the practical uses for fire would be, but because it was fascinating.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Fascination Fire Interest Mystery
You have to learn to recognize your own depth.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Deep Learning Recognition Yourself
Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

End Expectation Figure Life Movie Question
Respect your curses, for they are the instruments of your destiny.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Curse Inspirational Instrument Perspective Respect
When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die. . . . (90)
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Experience Forever Possible Truth Yourself
I think of compassion as the fundamental religious experience and, unless that is there, you have nothing.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Compassionate Fundamental Religious Thinking Yourself
The goal of life is rapture. Art is the way we experience it.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Art Experience Goal Life
The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Afraid Yourself
When we talk about settling the world’s problems, we’re barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It’s a mess. It has always been a mess. We’re not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Break Live Ourselves Problem Talk Tree World Wrong
What we are really living for is the experience of life, both the pain and the pleasure.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Experience Happiness Life Live Pain

I have found that you have only to take that one step toward the gods, and they will then take ten steps toward you. That step, the heroic first step of the journey, is out of, or over the edge of, your boundaries, and it often must be taken before you know that you will.

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I have found that you have only to take that one step toward the gods, and they will then take ten steps toward you. That step, the heroic first step of the journey, is out of, or over the edge of, your boundaries, and it often must be taken before you know that you will.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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