"It is only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world."
— Joseph Campbell
It Is Only When A Man
It is only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world.
About this quote
From The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). Campbell borrows the language of dragon-slaying and demon-conquering from world mythology to make a psychological point: the monsters the hero must face are projections of the hero's own unconscious fears and suppressed capacities. Drawing on Carl Jung's concept of the shadow, Campbell argues that the encounter with the dragon — the refusal of the call, the abyss, the ordeal — is not an obstacle to the journey but its transformative core. To "tame one's demons" is to integrate the disowned parts of the self, which then become available as energy and insight rather than compulsion.
Source
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)