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

I want to be freed neither from human beings, nor from myself, nor from nature; for all these appear to me the greatest of miracles.

It is the individual's task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities . . . interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible. . . .

One cannot free oneself by bowing to the yoke, but by breaking it.

The divine process of change manifests itself to our human understanding . . . as punishment, torment, death, and transfiguration.

Archetypes, in spite of their conservative nature, are not static but in a continuous dramatic flux. Thus the self as a monad or continuous unit would be dead. But it lives inasmuch as it splits and unites again. There is no energy without opposites!

If our religion is based on salvation, our chief emotions will be fear and trembling. If our religion is based on wonder, our chief emotion will be gratitude.