No tribal rite has yet been recorded which attempts to keep winter from descending; on the contrary: the rites all prepare the community to endure, together with the rest of nature, the season of the terrible cold.
Joseph CampbellRead
You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.
Interpretation
Maturity comes from taking control of your life and decisions.
In this quote, Joseph Campbell emphasizes that true maturity is achieved when an individual assumes responsibility for their own choices and actions. This self-ownership allows for personal growth, independence, and a deeper understanding of one's own values and beliefs, leading to a more fulfilling life.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal responsibility and growth.
No tribal rite has yet been recorded which attempts to keep winter from descending; on the contrary: the rites all prepare the community to endure, together with the rest of nature, the season of the terrible cold.
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.
Christianity isn’t moving people’s lives today. What’s moving people’s lives is the stock market and the baseball scores. What are people excited about? It’s a totally materialistic level that has taken over the world. There isn’t even an ideal that anybody’s fighting for.
Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end. The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth—that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.
The demon that you can swallow gives you it’s power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.
And if there was no Fall, what then of the need for Redemption? What god was offended and by whom? Some especially touchy cave bear whose skull had been improperly enshrined?
Don't borrow someone else's plan. Develop your own philosophy and it will lead you to unique places.
When we are motivated by compassion and wisdom, the results of our actions benefit everyone, not just our individual selves.
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
Einstein was once asked how many feet are in a mile. Einstein's reply was "I don't know, why should I fill my brain with facts I can find in two minutes in any standard reference book?
Listen closely to your invisible thoughts. What do you hear? What are your words implying? That is their potency. What do you want? Name it and rearrange the structure of your mind to imply you no longer desire it, because you already have it!
The woman who follows the crowd will usually believe that I said this.
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