Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one's death.

... what the artist or creative scientist feels is not anxiety or fear; it is joy. I use the word in contrast to happiness or pleasure. The artist, at the moment of creating, does not experience gratification or satisfaction... Rather, it is joy, joy defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualizing one's own potentialities.

Our age is one of transition, in which the normal channels for utilizing the daimonic are denied; and such ages tend to be times when the daimonic is expressed in its most destructive form.

One must have at least a readiness to love the other person, broadly speaking, if one is to be able to understand him.

Freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound; it must be achieved each day.

Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line.

Apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice.