The line appears in Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion (HarperCollins, 1991), selected and edited by Diane K. Osbon — a book assembled after Campbell’s death. Quote Investigator ↗ verified it against a hardcopy in the chapter “In the Field,” where Osbon says she recorded these words directly from Campbell over years in his company.
“We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy” Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, selected and edited by Diane K. Osbon (HarperCollins, 1991), chapter "In the Field," pp. 8, 17. Source traced and verified against a hardcopy by Quote Investigator. Via quotle.info
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In context
Evoking the world of Joseph Campbell — American writer & scholar of comparative mythology. Theme: "We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The source
Source
Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion
Section
Chapter “In the Field” — quote pages 8 and 17
First published
1991, HarperCollins, New York — published posthumously
Compiled by
Diane K. Osbon, from journals kept over years in Campbell’s company
We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. 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 are not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
“In the Field” · pages 8 and 17
As reproduced by Quote Investigator ↗ from a hardcopy. QI’s citation covers pages 8 and 17, so even this block is gathered from two places in the chapter rather than one unbroken paragraph — the book sets these sayings out as short standalone lines.
Quote Investigator ↗ locates the wording in the 1991 book Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, chapter “In the Field,” pages 8 and 17, marked “verified with hardcopy,” and concludes Campbell should receive credit on the testimony of editor Diane K. Osbon.
The Internet Archive holds the 1991 HarperCollins edition ↗ — Joseph Campbell as author, Diane K. Osbon as editor — catalogued with the title elements reversed, as A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living. Both orderings refer to the same book.
The Joseph Campbell Foundation ↗, which publishes the book today, describes the material as drawn from a month-long workshop at the Esalen Institute held in celebration of Campbell’s eightieth birthday.
Wikiquote’s Campbell page ↗ cites this same 1991 companion by page number for three other sayings, and has a dedicated section for The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) — yet this line appears in neither. A correct attribution with no page number is exactly the gap that lets the wrong book take hold.
The work this line is documented in was first published in 1991, so it is under US copyright — the quotation is reproduced here in short form for attribution and fact-checking. The Joseph Campbell Foundation ↗ publishes the book today; Diane K. Osbon holds the compilation credit. Campbell’s own early work is a separate question — but this sentence is not documented in it.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What travels wrong
The name on this one is right. What goes wrong is the book it gets pinned to, and the way three separate Campbell lines get welded into a single paragraph.
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SourceThe Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) wrong book
Wordingthe merged three-sentence version assembled
It usually circulates as one continuous quotation opening “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world” and closing with a line about the warrior’s approach. Those are separate sayings: the Joseph Campbell Foundation ↗ gives the joyful-participation line as “Joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world and everything changes,” sourced to Sukhavati, not to the 1991 companion.
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CitationPassItOn and the inspirational-quote circuit sourceless
✓The documented record is a single sentence in the chapter “In the Field” of the 1991 companion, taken from Diane K. Osbon’s journals of her time with Campbell — verified against a hardcopy by Quote Investigator ↗.
Context
Why it matters
It reads like a fridge magnet, and by now it is one — but the sentence was never meant to stand alone. In the book it is the opening of a short run of lines that get much blunter: the world is a mess, it has always been a mess, we are not going to change it, and the job in front of you is your own life.
That continuation is the part the internet drops, and dropping it flips the meaning. Quoted alone, the line can read as permission to look away. With the next four lines attached, it reads as an argument about where to put your effort — closer to a warning against grand fixes than to a case for cheerfulness.
The world is perfect. It’s a mess.
Read the full story
Campbell did not write this book. The Joseph Campbell Foundation ↗ describes it as drawn from a month-long workshop at the Esalen Institute held to celebrate his eightieth birthday, and Quote Investigator ↗ quotes Osbon describing the chapter this line sits in as “favorite expressions of his, recorded in my journals over the years in his company.” So the wording is Campbell’s speech as caught by his editor, not a sentence he drafted and published.
Quote Investigator sets one parallel beside it: Kurt Vonnegut’s A Man Without a Country (2005) makes a similar point about the planet always having been a mess. QI presents that as a resemblance, not a rival origin — it does not suggest Vonnegut wrote Campbell’s line.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1904–1987 · American writer & scholar of comparative mythology
Joseph Campbell taught literature at Sarah Lawrence College and spent a career in comparative mythology and comparative religion, arguing that the world’s myths are variations on one human story — the case he made in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) and that reached a mass audience through his PBS conversations with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth. He died in October 1987. A great deal of what circulates as “Campbell” today, this line included, comes from books built after his death out of lectures, workshops, and the notebooks of people who sat with him.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Source
Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, selected and edited by Diane K. Osbon (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), chap. “In the Field,” 8, 17.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy’?” Last verified 24 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/we-cannot-cure-the-world-of-sorrows-but-we-can-choose-to/