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Carl Jung

Carl Jung Quotes

Psychiatrist

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Famous Carl Jung Quotes

“There is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them.”

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Book:The structure and dynamics of the psyche
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“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is "man" in a higher sense— he is "collective man"— one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic forms of mankind.”

MenHumansKindMayPersonsArtEndsFormPurposeArtistRealizingHuman BeingsMankindHigherShapesArt IsAimInstrumentsMoodUnconsciousCollectivesCarrieFree WillPsychicsInnateMemories Dreams ReflectionsCollective Unconscious
Author:Carl Jung
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“Observance of customs and laws can very easily be a cloak for a lie so subtle that our fellow human beings are unable to detect it. It may help us to escape all criticism, we may even be able to deceive ourselves in the belief of our obvious righteousness. But deep down, below the surface of the average man's conscience, he hears a voice whispering, 'There is something not right,' no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or by the moral code.”

MenHumansMayMatterHelpingAbleLawLyingBeliefVoiceHuman BeingsMoralOpinionConscienceCriticismFellowsAverageObviousSurfaceCodeSubtleRighteousnessCustomsDeceivingPublic OpinionDeep DownWhisperingCloaksMemories Dreams ReflectionsAverage ManObservanceMoral CodeBelow The Surface
Author:Carl Jung
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“A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them. As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

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Author:Carl Jung
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“I am an orphan, alone: nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a fish, or fell like a white stone from heaven. In woods and mountains I roam, but I am hidden in the innermost soul of man. I am mortal for everyone, yet I am not touched by the cycle of aeons.”

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Book:Memories, dreams, reflections
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“The sad truth is that man's real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites - day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.”

IfsMenHas BeensRealEndsPainLife IsJoyNightEvilExistenceBirthTruth IsOppositesOvercomingMiseryComplexesDefeatReal LifeGood And EvilGood WillDay And NightBirth And DeathInexorableSad TruthBattleground
Book:Man and His Symbols
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“We are so full of apprehensions, fears, that we don't know exactly to what it points... a great change of our psychoglocal attitude is imminent, that is certain...because we need more understanding of human nature because ...the only real danger that exists is man himself... and we know nothing of man - his psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil.”

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Author:Carl Jung
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“Our mania for rational explanations obviously has its roots in our fear of metaphysics, for the two were always hostile brothers. Hence, anything unexpected that approaches us from the dark realm is regarded either as coming from outside and, therefore, as real, or else as a hallucination and, therefore, not true. The idea that anything could be real or true which does not come from outside has hardly begun to dawn on contemporary man.”

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Book:Civilization in transition
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“It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not consciously, of course—for consciously he is engaged in bewailing and cursing a faithless world that recedes further and further into the distance. Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illusions that veil his world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop him.”

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Book:pt. 1. The archetypes and the collective unconscious
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“The woman is increasingly aware that love alone can give her full stature, just as the man begins to discern that spirit alone can endow his life with its highest meaning. Fundamentally, therefore, both seek a psychic relation to the other, because love needs the spirit, and the spirit love, for their fulfillment.”

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Author:Carl Jung
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“In studying the history of the human mind one is impressed again and again by the fact that its growth keeps pace with a widening range of consciousness, and that each step forward is an extremely painful and laborious achievement. One could almost say that nothing is more hateful to man than to give up the smallest particle of unconsciousness. He has a profound fear of the unknown. Ask anybody who has ever tried to introduce new ideas!”

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Author:Carl Jung
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“Contemporary man is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by "powers" that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food - and, above all, a large array of neuroses”

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Author:Carl Jung
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“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.”

PeopleIfsMenLoveMayLittlesHopeSidesResultsLearningViolenceRespectFellowsInjusticeOneselfNeighborToleranceEducatedHypocrisyFellow ManTransfers
Book:The Collected Works of C. G. Jung: Two essays on analytical psychology
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“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?”

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Book:The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
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“Thunder is no longer the voice of an angry god... No river contains a spirit... no snake the embodiment of wisdom, no mountain cave the home of a great demon. No voices now speak to man from stones, plants and animals, nor does he speak to them thinking they can hear. His contact with nature has gone, and with it has gone the profound emotional energy that this symbolic connection supplied.”

ThinkingMenDoeHomeSpiritEnergySpeakVoiceAnimalGoneEmotionalMountainRiversStonesConnectionsAngryPlantProfoundContactDemonSnakesCavesThunderSymbolicEmbodimentPlants And AnimalsEmotional Energy
Author:Carl Jung
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“The God-image in man was not destroyed by the Fall but was only damaged and corrupted (“deformed”), and can be restored through God's grace. The scope of the integration is suggested by the descensus ad inferos, the descent of Christ's soul to hell, its work of redemption embracing even the dead. The psychological equivalent of this is the integration of the collective unconscious which forms an essential part of the individuation process.”

MenSoulFormFallProcessChristHellGraceEssentialsPsychologicalDestroyedRedemptionUnconsciousCollectivesIntegrationScopeDescentGod's GraceGod ImageIndividuationCollective Unconscious
Author:Carl Jung
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“Yahweh [God] must become man precisely because he has done man a wrong. He, the guardian of justice, knows that every wrong must be expiated, and Wisdom knows that moral law is above even him. Because his creature has surpassed him he must regenerate himself”

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Book:The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Psychology and religion, West and East
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“At present we educate people only up to the point where they can earn a living and marry; then education ceases altogether, as though a complete mental outfit had been acquired. ... Vast numbers of men and women thus spend their entire lives in complete ignorance of the most important things.”

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Book:Collected Works of C.G. Jung: The development of personality
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“If God wishes to be born as man and to unite mankind in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, He suffers the terrible torment of having to bear the world in its reality. It is a crux; indeed, He Himself is His own cross. The world is God's suffering, and every individual human being who wishes even to approach his own wholeness knows very well that this means bearing his own cross. But the eternal promise for him who bears his own cross is the Paraclete.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldHumansWellsMeanRealitySufferingIndividualWishBornHuman BeingsMankindBearsTerribleHolyPromiseEternalApproachCrossesGhostWholenessTormentFellowshipHoly GhostCrux
Author:Carl Jung
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“There is, how­ever, a strong empir­i­cal rea­son why we should cul­ti­vate thoughts that can never be proved. It is that they are known to be use­ful. Man pos­i­tively needs gen­eral ideas & con­vic­tions that will give a mean­ing to his life & enable him to find a place for him­self in the uni­verse. He can stand the most incred­i­ble hard­ships when he is con­vinced that they make sense; he is crushed when on top of all his mis­for­tunes, he has to admit that he is tak­ing part in a ‘tale told by an idiot.’”

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Author:Carl Jung
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“Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history.”

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Book:The Collected Works of C. G. Jung: Structure and dynamics of the psyche
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“Our mind has its history, just as our body has its history. You might be just as astonished that man has an appendix, for instance. Does he know he ought to have an appendix? He is just born with it....Our unconscious mind, like our body, is a storehouse of relics and memories of the past. A study of the structure of the unconscious collective mind would reveal the same discoveries as you make in comparative anatomy. We do not need to think that there is anything mystical about it.”

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Author:Carl Jung
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“Self-reflection, or - what comes to the same thing - the urge to individuation, gathers together what is scattered and multifarious and exalts it to the original of the One, the Primordial Man. In this way our existence as separate beings, our former ego nature, is abolished, the circle of consciousness is widened, and because the paradoxes have been made conscious, the sources of conflict are dried up.”

MenWayHas BeensMadeSelfTogetherExistenceConsciousnessPsychologySourceConflictEgoReflectionConsciousOriginalsCirclesFormerUrgesParadoxSelf ReflectionIndividuation
Book:The Collected Works
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