Man's Search for Himself (1953)

Not to recognize the daimonic itself turns out to be daimonic, it makes us accomplices on the side of the destructive possession.

Poets often have a conscious awareness that they are struggling with the daimonic...

[The daimonic] needs to be directed and channeled - consciousness can integrate the daimonic, make it personal... - the daimonic always has its biological base…

My 'act' has ended by becoming an integral part of my nature, I told myself. It's no longer an act. My knowledge that I am masquerading as a normal person has …

Man is only a disguise, a liar, a hypocrite, both to himself and to others. (377)

I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him…