Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.
— Carl Jung
Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.
We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything more.
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.
Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?
Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.
Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness.
Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.
We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.
One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.
The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off.
The word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
The word 'belief' is a difficult thing for me. I don't believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it - I don't need to believe it.
In my case Pilgrim's Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
