The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.

I hold the view that the alchemist’s hope of conjuring out of matter the philosophical gold, or the panacea, or the wonderful stone, was only in part an illusion, an effect of projection; for the rest it corresponded to certain psychic facts that are of great importance in the psychology of the unconscious. As is shown by the texts and their symbolism, the alchemist projected what I have called the process of individuation into the phenomena of chemical change.

While personal problems are not overlooked, the analyst keeps an eye on their symbolic aspects, for healing comes only from what leads the patient beyond himself and beyond his entanglement in the ego.

We don't so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.

The longing for light is the longing for consciousness.

We discover ourselves through others.

To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is.