Quotessence
Home / Books / The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Book by Carl Jung · 27 quotes · Memories Dreams Reflections, Unconscious, Consciousness

Filter quotes by topic

AllMemories Dreams ReflectionsUnconsciousConsciousnessAnimaMenWorldArchetypeArchetypesCosmosDreamExistenceFeminineIndividualInvisibleMotherRealitySeemsSpiritualSpiritualityThinking

The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious Quotes

“The woman who fights against her father still has the possibility of leading an instinctive, feminine existence, because she rejects only what is alien to her. But when she fights against the mother she may, at the risk of injury to her instincts, attain to greater consciousness, because in repudiating the mother she repudiates all that is obscure, instinctive, ambiguous, and unconscious in her own nature.”

MayStillsMotherFightingFatherExistenceConsciousnessGreaterRiskPossibilityInstinctAliensUnconsciousInjuryRejectsFeminineObscureAmbiguousMemories Dreams Reflections
Book:The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Create image

“How else could it have occurred to man to divide the cosmos, on the analogy of day and night, summer and winter, into a bright day-world and a dark night-world peopled with fabulous monsters, unless he had the prototype of such a division in himself, in the polarity between the conscious and the invisible and unknowable unconscious?”

MenWorldNightDarkSummerConsciousWinterMonstersInvisibleUnconsciousCosmosDivisionDividesFabulousDay And NightAnalogiesDark NightPrototypePolaritySummer And WinterBright Days
Book:The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Create image

“The darkness which clings to every personality is the door into the unconscious and the gateway of dreams, from which those two twilight figures, the shadow and the anima, step into our nightly visions or, remaining invisible, take possession of our ego-consciousness.”

TwoDreamConsciousnessVisionStepsDarknessDoorsFiguresPersonalityEgoShadowPossessionInvisibleUnconsciousTwilightGateways
Book:The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Create image

“The 'squaring of the circle' is one of the many archetypal motifs which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies. But it is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most important of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it could even be called the archetype of wholeness.”

ImportantFactsDreamFormViewsFantasyPatternsPoint Of ViewCirclesWholenessOur DreamsDistinguishedArchetypeMotifs
Book:The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Create image

“I have noticed that people usually have not much difficulty in picturing to themselves what is meant by the shadow, even if they would have preferred instead a bit of Latin or Greek jargon that sounds more “scientific.” But it costs them enormous difficulties to understand what the anima is. They accept her easily enough when she appears in novels or as a film star, but she is not understood at all when it comes to seeing the role she plays in their own lives, because she sums up everything that a man can never get the better of and never finishes coping with. Therefore it remains in a perpetual state of emotionality which must not be touched. The degree of unconsciousness one meets with in this connection is, to put it mildly, astounding. Hence it is practically impossible to get a man who is afraid of his own femininity to understand what is meant by the anima.”

FeminineMasculinityFemininityMasculineAnima
Book:The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Create image

“A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal, which is the reason why the ethical attitude of large organizations is always doubtful. The psychology of a large crowd inevitably sinks to the level of mob psychology. If, therefore, I have a so-called collective experience as a member of a group, it takes place on a lower level of consciousness than if I had the experience by myself alone.”

IndividualConsciousnessGroupsEthicsCrowdsPsycheMobCollective
Book:The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Create image

“The unconscious no sooner touches us than we are it―we become unconscious of ourselves. That is the age-old danger, instinctively known and feared by primitive man, who himself stands so very close to this pleroma. His consciousness is still uncertain, wobbling on its feet. It is still childish, having just emerged from the primal waters. A wave of the unconscious may easily roll over it, and then he forgets who he was and does things that are strange to him. Hence primitives are afraid of uncontrolled emotions, because consciousness breaks down under them and gives way to possession. All man's strivings have therefore been directed towards the consolidation of consciousness. This was the purpose of rite and dogma; they were dams and walls to keep back the dangers of the unconscious, the "perils of the soul." Primitive rites consist accordingly in the exorcising of spirits, the lifting of spells, the averting of the evil omen, propitiation, purification, and the production by sympathetic magic of helpful occurrences.”

SpiritualityPsychologyThe Unconscious
Book:The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Create image