“It is only those who know neither an inner call nor an outer doctrine whose plight is truly desperate; that is to say, most of us today, in this labyrinth without and within the heart. Alas, where is the guide”
Source: The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), Chapter 1
Context: The multitude of men and women choose the less adventurous way of the comparatively unconscious civic and tribal routines. But these seekers, too, are saved—by the virtue of the inherited symbolic aids of society, the rites of passage, the grace-yielding sacraments, given to mankind of old by the redeemers and handed down through the millenniums. It is only those who know neither an inner call nor an outer doctrine whose plight is truly desperate; that is to say, most of us today, in this labyrinth without and within the heart. Alas, where is the guide, that fond virgin, Ariadne, to supply the simple clue that will give us the courage to face the Minotaur, and the means to find our way to freedom when the monster has been met and slain?
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Joseph Campbell 140
American mythologist, writer and lecturer 1904–1987Related quotes
“Only geometry can hand us the thread [which will lead us through] the labyrinth of the continuum’s composition, the maximum and the minimum, the infinitesimal and the infinite; and no one will arrive at a truly solid metaphysic except he who has passed through this [labyrinth].”
Nam filum labyrintho de compositione continui deque maximo et minimo ac indesignabili at que infinito non nisi geometria praebere potest, ad metaphysicam vero solidam nemo veniet, nisi qui illac transiverit.
Dissertatio Exoterica De Statu Praesenti et Incrementis Novissimis Deque Usu Geometriae (Spring 1676)
Source: Leibniz, Leibnizens Mathematische Schriften, Herausgegeben Von C.I. Gerhardt. Bd. 1-7. 1850-1863. Halle. The quotation is found in vol. 7. on page 326 in ”Dissertatio Exoterica De Statu Praesenti et Incrementis Novissimis Deque Usu Geometriae”. Link https://archive.org/stream/leibnizensmathe12leibgoog
Source: Geometry and Monadology: Leibniz's Analysis Situs and Philosophy of Space by Vincenzo de Risi. Page 123. Link https://books.google.no/books?id=2ptGkzsKyOQC&lpg=PA123&ots=qz2aKxAYtp&dq=Dissertatio%20Exoterica%20De%20Statu%20Praesenti%20et%20Incrementis%20Novissimis%20Deque%20Usu%20Geometriae%E2%80%9D&hl=no&pg=PA123#v=onepage&q&f=false
“The heart of man is a labyrinth, whose windings are very difficult to be discovered.”
Letter IV : Heloise to Abelard
Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Context: The heart of man is a labyrinth, whose windings are very difficult to be discovered. The praises you give me are the more dangerous, in regard that I love the person who gives them. The more I desire to please you, the readier am I to believe all the merit you attribute to me. Ah, think rather how to support my weaknesses by wholesome remonstrances! Be rather fearful than confident of my salvation: say our virtue is founded upon weakness, and that those only will be crowned who have fought with the greatest difficulties: but I seek not for that crown which is the reward of victory, I am content to avoid only the danger. It is easier to keep off than to win a battle. There are several degrees in glory, and I am not ambitious of the highest; those I leave to souls of great courage, who have been often victorious. I seek not to conquer, out of fear lest I should be overcome. Happy enough, if I can escape shipwreck, and at last gain the port. Heaven commands me to renounce that fatal passion which unites me to you; but oh! my heart will never be able to consent to it. Adieu.
“Only those who have reviewed, year in and year out, know how truly abominable most fiction is.”
"Books" (review column), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979
Non-fiction
Section 37, Ch.6 Misfits
The True Believer (1951), Part Two: The Potential Converts
In a report in 1792 - Goya wrote to the Academy of San Fernando, on 'teaching art'; as quoted in Francisco Goya y Licientis, Janis Tomlinson, Phaodon 1999, p. 70
1790s
