It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not consciously, of course—for consciously he is engaged in bewailing and cursing a faithless world that recedes further and further into the distance. Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illusions that veil his world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop him.

Modern man is battered by the fundamental forces of his own psyche.

One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.

I saw that everything, all paths I had been following, all steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point - namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation. I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate.

The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.

There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum.

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