The achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of diminution of personality

Age and Aging

From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

Consciousness

The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness on his life.

Egotism

An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.

Happiness

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.

Imitation

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

Knowledge

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Masses

Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics.

Pain

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

Promises

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.

Self-knowledge

If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.

Understanding

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

Youth

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