Here are five inspiring passages from Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell.
Myth and the Modern World (chapter 1)
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 expeirneces on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Journey Inward (chapter 2)
One thing that comes out in myths is that at the bottom of abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moments comes the light.
Sacrifice and Bliss (chapter 4)
If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the whle, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you all the time.
The Hero’s Adventure (chapter 5)
Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be will be with all the world.
Masks of Eternity (chapter 8)
The images of myth are reflections of the spiritual potentialities of every one of us. Through contemplating these, we evoke their powers in our own lives.