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.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

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.

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

A “scream” is always just that – a noise and not music.

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.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

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.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.

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.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

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.

Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

The word “happiness” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.

Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness.

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

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.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

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.

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

The wine of youth does not always clear with advancing years; sometimes it grows turbid.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

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.

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.

Our heart glows, and secret unrest gnaws at the root of our being. Dealing with the unconscious has become a question of life for us.

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better.

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

The Christian missionary may preach the gospel to the poor naked heathen, but the spiritual heathen who populate Europe have as yet heard nothing of Christianity.

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.