The underlying, primary psychic reality is so inconceivably complex that it can be grasped only at the farthest reach of intuition, and then but very dimly. That is why it needs symbols.

There is, how­ever, a strong empir­i­cal rea­son why we should cul­ti­vate thoughts that can never be proved. It is that they are known to be use­ful. Man pos­i­tively needs gen­eral ideas & con­vic­tions that will give a mean­ing to his life & enable him to find a place for him­self in the uni­verse. He can stand the most incred­i­ble hard­ships when he is con­vinced that they make sense; he is crushed when on top of all his mis­for­tunes, he has to admit that he is tak­ing part in a ‘tale told by an idiot.’

If there is a fear of falling, the only safety consists in deliberately jumping.

But we must not forget that only a very few people are artists in life; that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts.

Just imagine what would happen if practicing physicians, the ones who have come into contact directly with suffering humanity, had some acquaintance with Eastern systems of healing. The Spirit of the East surges through every pore as a balm for all afflictions.

I had to make a confession of faith in stone. That was the beginning of the tower, the house I built for myself at Bollingen.

We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad.