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

"The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928). In CW 7: Two
Essays on Analytical Psychology. P. 242

We do not sufficiently distinguish between Individualism and individuation. Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity, rather than to collective considerations and obligations. But individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfilment of the collective qualities of the human being, since adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more conducive to better social achievement than when the peculiarity is neglected or suppressed.

"The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P. 267
 

Every advance in culture is, psychologically, an extension of consciousness, a coming to consciousness that can take place only through discrimination. Therefore an advance always begins with individuation, that is to say with the individual, conscious of his isolation, cutting a new path through hitherto untrodden territory. To do this he must first return to the fundamental facts of his own being, irrespective of all authority and tradition, and allow himself to become conscious of his distinctiveness. If he succeeds in giving collective validity to his widened consciousness, he creates a tension of opposites that provides the stimulation which culture needs for its further progress.

"On Psychic Energy" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 111

Our life is like the course of the sun. In the morning it gains continually
in strength until it reaches the zenith heat of high noon. Then comes the
enantiodromia: the steady forward movement no longer denotes an increase, but a decrease, in strength. Thus our task in handling a young person is different from the task of handling an older person. In the former case, it is enough to clear away all the obstacles that hinder expansion and ascent; in the latter, we must nurture everything that assists the descent.

"On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology P. 114

Neurosis is intimately bound up with the problem of our time and really
represents an unsuccessful attempt on the part of the individual to solve
the general problem in his own person. Neurosis is self-division.

"On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology P. 18
 

The small world of the child, the family milieu, is the model for the big
world. The more intensely the family sets its stamp on the child, the more
he will be emotionally inclined, as an adult, to see in the great world his
former small world. Of course this must not be taken as a conscious
intellectual process. On the contrary, the patient feels and sees the
difference between now and then, and tries as well as he can to adapt
himself. Perhaps he will even believe himself perfectly adapted, since he
may be able to grasp the situation intellectually, but that does not prevent
his emotions from lagging far behind his intellectual insight.

"The Theory of Psychoanalysis" (1913). In CW 4: Freud and Psychoanalysis. P.
312
 

Infantilism, however, is something extremely ambiguous. First, it can be
either genuine or purely symptomatic; and second, it can be either residuary or embryonic. There is an enormous difference between something that has remained infantile and something that is in the process of growth. Both can take an infantile or embryonic form, and more often than not it is impossible to tell at first glance whether we are dealing with a regrettably persistent fragment of infantile life or with a vitally important creative beginning. To deride these possibilities is to act like a dullard who does not know that the future is more important than the past.

"The State of Psychotherapy Today" (1934). In CW 10: Civilization in
Transition. P.345

Since the aims of the second half of life are different from those of the
first, to linger too long in the youthful attitude produces a division of
the will. Consciousness still presses forward in obedience, as it were, to
its own inertia, but the unconscious lags behind, because the strength and
inner resolve needed for further expansion have been sapped. This disunity with oneself begets discontent, and since one is not conscious of the real state of things one generally projects the reasons for it upon one's
partner. A critical atmosphere thus develops, the necessary prelude to
conscious realization.

"Marriage as a Psychological Relationship" (1925). In CW 17: The Development
of the Personality. P. 331

It is not possible to live too long amid infantile surroundings, or in the
bosom of the family, without endangering one's psychic health. Life calls us forth to independence, and anyone who does not heed this call because of childish laziness or timidity is threatened with neurosis. And once this has broken out, it becomes an increasingly valid reason for running away from life and remaining forever in the morally poisonous atmosphere of infancy.

Symbols of Transformation (1952). CW 5: P. 461

If we try to extract the common and essential factors from the almost
inexhaustible variety of individual problems found in the period of youth,
we meet in all cases with one particular feature: a more or less patent
clinging to the childhood level of consciousness, a resistance to the
fateful forces in and around us which would involve us in the world.
Something in us wishes to remain a child, to be unconscious or, at most,
conscious only of the ego; to reject everything strange, or else subject it
to our will; to do nothing, or else indulge our own craving for pleasure or
power. In all this there is something of the inertia of matter; it is a
persistence in the previous state whose range of consciousness is smaller,
narrower, and more egoistic than that of the dualistic phase. For here the
individual is faced with the necessity of recognizing and accepting what is
different and strange as a part of his own life, as a kind of "also-I."

"The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P. 764
 

Obviously it is in the youthful period of life that we have most to gain
from a thorough recognition of the instinctual side. A timely recognition of sexuality, for instance, can prevent that neurotic suppression of it which
keeps a man unduly withdrawn from life, or else forces him into a wretched and unsuitable way of living with which he is bound to come into conflict. Proper recognition and appreciation of normal instincts leads the young person into life and entangles him with fate, thus involving him in life's necessities and the consequent sacrifices and efforts through which his character is developed and his experience matured. For the mature person, however, the continued expansion of life is obviously not the right
principle, because the descent towards life's afternoon demands
simplification, limitation, and intensification-in other words, individual
culture.

"On Psychic Energy" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P. 113
 

It even seems as if young people who have had a hard struggle for existence are spared inner problems, while those who for some reason or other have no difficulty with adaptation run into problems of sex or conflicts arising from a sense of inferiority.

"The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P. 762

The nearer we approach to the middle of life, and the better we have
succeeded in entrenching ourselves in our personal attitudes and social
positions, the more it appears as if we had discovered the right course and
the right ideals and principles of behaviour. For this reason we suppose
them to be eternally valid, and make a virtue of unchangeably clinging to
them. We overlook the essential fact that the social goal is attained only
at the cost of a diminution of personality. Many-far too many-aspects of
life which should also have been experienced lie in the lumber-room among dusty memories; but sometimes, too, they are glowing coals under grey ashes.

"The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P. 771

The discovery of the value of human personality is reserved for a riper age. For young people the search for personality values is very often a pretext for evading their biological duty. Conversely, the exaggerated longing of an older person for the sexual values of youth is a short-sighted and often cowardly evasion of a duty which demands recognition of the value of personality and submission to the hierarchy of cultural values. The young neurotic shrinks back in terror from the expansion of life's duties, the old one from the dwindling of the treasures he has attained.

CW 4: Freud and Psychoanalysis. P.664

The middle period of life is a time of enormous psychological importance.
The child begins its psychological life within very narrow limits, inside
the magic circle of the mother and the family. With progressive maturation
it widens its horizon and its own sphere of influence; its hopes and
intentions are directed to extending the scope of personal power and
possessions; desire reaches out to the world in ever-widening range; the
will of the individual becomes more and more identical with the natural
goals pursued by unconscious motivations. Thus man breathes his own life into things, until finally they begin to live of themselves and to multiply;and imperceptibly he is overgrown by them. Mothers are overtaken by their children, men by their own creations, and what was originally brought into being only with labour and the greatest effort can no longer be held in check. First it was passion, then it became duty, and finally an intolerable burden, a vampire that fattens on the life of its creator.

"Marriage as a Psychological Relationship" (1925). In CW 17: The Development of the Personality. P. 331

Take for comparison the daily course of the sun-but a sun that is endowed
with human feeling and man's limited consciousness. In the morning it rises from the nocturnal sea of unconsciousness and looks upon the wide, bright world which lies before it in an expanse that steadily widens the higher it climbs in the firmament. In this extension of its field of action caused by its own rising, the sun will discover its significance; it will see the attainment of the greatest possible height, and the widest possible
dissemination of its blessings, as its goal. In this conviction the sun
pursues its course to the unforeseen zenith-unforeseen, because its career
is unique and individual, and the culminating point could not be calculated
in advance. At the stroke of noon the descent begins. And the descent means the reversal of all the ideals and values that were cherished in the
morning.

"The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P. 778
 

Wholly unprepared, we embark upon the second half of life. Or are there
perhaps colleges for forty-year-olds which prepare them for their coming
life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young people to a knowledge of the world? No, thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false
assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we
cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life's
morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and
what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.

"The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P. 784

An inexperienced youth thinks one can let the old people go, because not
much more can happen to them anyway: they have their lives behind them and are no better than petrified pillars of the past. But it is a great mistake
to suppose that the meaning of life is exhausted with the period of youth
and expansion; that, for example, a woman who has passed the menopause is "finished." The afternoon of life is just as full of meaning as the morning; only, its meaning and purpose are different.

"On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology P. 114

If we wish to stay on the heights we have reached, we must struggle all the
time to consolidate our consciousness and its attitude. But we soon discover that this praiseworthy and apparently unavoidable battle with the years leads to stagnation and desiccation of soul. Our convictions become
platitudes ground out on a barrel-organ, our ideals become starchy habits,
enthusiasm stiffens into automatic gestures. The source of the water of life
seeps away. We ourselves may not notice it, but everybody else does, and
that is even more painful. If we should risk a little introspection, coupled
perhaps with an energetic attempt to be honest for once with ourselves, we
may get a dim idea of all the wants, longings, and fears that have
accumulated down there-a repulsive and sinister sight. The mind shies away,but life wants to flow down into the depths. Fate itself seems to preserve us from this, for each of us has a tendency to become an immovable pillar of
the past.

Symbols of Transformation (1952). CW 5: P. 553

In my naturally limited experience there are, among people of maturer age,
very many for whom the development of individuality is an indispensable
requirement. Hence I am privately of the opinion that it is just the mature
person who, in our times, has the greatest need of some further education in individual culture after his youthful education in school or university has moulded him on exclusively collective lines and thoroughly imbued him with the collective mentality.

"On Psychic Energy" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 112

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful
appendage to life's morning. The significance of the morning undoubtedly
lies in the development of the individual, our entrenchment in the outer
world, the propagation of our kind, and the care of our children. This is
the obvious purpose of nature. But when this purpose has been attained -and more than attained-shall the earning of money, the extension of conquests, and the expansion of life go steadily on beyond the bounds of all reason and sense? Whoever carries over into the afternoon the law of the morning, or the natural aim, must pay for it with damage to his soul, just as surely as a growing youth who tries to carry over his childish egoism into adult life must pay for this mistake with social failure.

"The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 787
 

Our personality develops in the course of our life from germs that are hard
or impossible to discern, and it is only our deeds that reveal who we are.
We are like the sun, which nourishes the life of the earth and brings forth
every kind of strange, wonderful, and evil thing; we are like the mothers
who bear in their wombs untold happiness and suffering. At first we do not know what deeds or misdeeds, what destiny, what good and evil we have in us, and only the autumn can show what the spring has engendered, only in the evening will it be seen what the morning began.

"The Development of the Personality" (1934). In CW 17: The Development of the Personality. P.290

He who is rooted in the soil endures. Alienation from the unconscious and
from its historical conditions spells rootlessness. That is the danger that
lies in wait for the conqueror of foreign lands, and for every individual
who, through one-sided allegiance to any kind of -ism, loses touch with the dark, maternal, earthy ground of his being.

"Mind and Earth" (1927). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 103

In the case of psychological suffering, which always isolates the individual
from the herd of so- called normal people, it is of the greatest importance
to understand that the conflict is not a personal failure only, but at the
same time a suffering common to all and a problem with which the whole epoch is burdened. This general point of view lifts the individual out of himself and connects him with humanity.

Analytical Psychology: Its Theory and Practice: The Tavistock Lectures.
(1935). In CW 18 (retitled) "The Tavistock Lectures" P.116
 

On closer examination one is always astonished to see how much of our
so-called individual psychology is really collective. So much, indeed, that
the individual traits are completely overshadowed by it. Since, however,
individuation is an ineluctable psychological necessity, we can see from the ascendancy of the collective what very special attention must be paid to
this delicate plant "individuality" if it is not to be completely smothered.

"The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928). In CW 7: Two
Essays on Analytical Psychology. P. 241
 

"The Principles of Practical Psychology" (1935). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy. P.161

A person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire. It is as
though each of us was born with a limited store of energy. In the artist,
the strongest force in his make-up, that is, his creativeness, will seize
and all but monopolize this energy, leaving so little over that nothing of
value can come of it. The creative impulse can drain him of his humanity to such a degree that the personal ego can exist only on a primitive or
inferior level and is driven to develop all sorts of defects-ruthlessness,
selfishness ("autoeroticism"), vanity, and other infantile traits. These
inferiorities are the only means by which it can maintain its vitality and
prevent itself from being wholly depleted.

"Psychology and Literature" (1930). In CW 15: The Spirit in Man, Art and
Literature. P. 158
 

There would appear to be a sort of conscience in mankind which severely
punishes every one who does not somehow and at some time, at whatever cost to his virtuous pride, cease to defend and assert himself, and instead
confess himself fallible and human. Until he can do this, an impenetrable
wall shuts him off from the vital feeling that he is a man among other men.

"Problems of Modern Psychotherapy" (1929). In CW 16: The Practice of
Psychotherapy. P.132
 

Every individual needs revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing
order, and renewal, but not by forcing these things upon his neighbours
under the hypocritical cloak of Christian love or the sense of social
responsibility or any of the other beautiful euphemisms for unconscious
urges to personal power. Individual self-reflection, return of the
individual to the ground of human nature, to his own deepest being with its
individual and social destiny here is the beginning of a cure for that
blindness which reigns at the present hour.

"On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on
Analytical Psychology P. 5

It is the duty of one who goes his own way to inform society of what he
finds on his voyage of discovery, be it cooling water for the thirsty or the
sandy wastes of unfruitful error. The one helps, the other warns. Not the
criticism of individual contemporaries will decide the truth or falsity of
his discoveries, but future generations. There are things that are not yet
true today, perhaps we dare not find them true, but tomorrow they may be. So every man whose fate it is to go his individual way must proceed with
hopefulness and watchfulness, ever conscious of his loneliness and its
dangers.

"On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on
Analytical Psychology P. 201

If, as happens in long and difficult treatments, the analyst observes a
series of dreams often running into hundreds, there gradually forces itself
upon him a phenomenon which, in an isolated dream, would remain hidden behind the compensation of the moment. This phenomenon is a kind of developmental process in the personality itself. At first it seems that each compensation is a momentary adjustment of one-sidedness or an equalization of disturbed balance. But with deeper insight and experience, these apparently separate acts of compensation arrange themselves into a kind of plan. They seem to hang together and in the deepest sense to be subordinated to a common goal, so that a long dream-series no longer appears as a senseless string of incoherent and isolated happenings, but resembles the successive steps in a planned and orderly process of development. I have called this unconscious process spontaneously expressing itself in the symbolism of a long dream-series the individuation process.

"On the Nature of Dreams" (1945). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P.550