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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Everyone knows nowadays that people 'have complexes'. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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