Also he whose soul is a garden, needs things, men, and thoughts, but he is their friend and not their slave and fool.
Thus the rational attitude of culture runs into its opposite, namely the irrational devastation of culture.
Immediate self-observation is not enough, by a long way, to enable us to learn how to know ourselves. We need history, for the past continues to flow through us in a hundred channels.
Ironically, a large part of the job of psychotherapy is releasing the soul from the collective neurosis which in the guise of religion sanctifies estrangement of the soul from its own images and experiences.
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 indulge our own craving for pleasure or power.
Only a life lived in a certain spirit is worth living. It is a remarkable fact that a life lived entirely from the ego is dull not only for the person himself but for all concerned. The fullness of life requires something more than just an ego; it needs spirit.