253 Quotes by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

As long as a woman is forced into believing she is powerless and/or is trained to not consciously register what she knows to be true, the feminine impulses and gifts of her psyche continue to be killed off.

For myself, solitude is rather like a folded-up forest that I carry with me everywhere and unfurl around myself when I have need.

Like night dreams, stores often use symbolic language, therefore bypassing the ego and persona, and traveling straight to the spirit and soul who listen for the ancient and universal instructions imbedded there. Because of this process, stories can teach, correct errors, lighten the heart and the darkness, provide psychic shelter, assist transformation and heal wounds.

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.

Be wild; that is how to clear the river.

Asking the proper questions is the central action of transformation. Questions are the key that causes the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.

It's not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our own inner wild nature fades.

The point of art is not simply to express ourselves, but to create an external, concrete form in which the soul of our lives can be evoked and contained.

The deepest work is usually the darkest. A brave woman, a wisening woman, will developing the poorest psychic land, for if she builds only on the best land of her psyche, she will have for a view the least of what she is. So do not be afraid of the worst. It only guarantees increase of soul power through fresh insights and opportunities for re-visioning one's life and self anew.