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James Hillman

James Hillman Quotes

Psychologist

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Famous James Hillman Quotes

“The soul of each of us is given a unique daimon before we are born, and it has selected an image or pattern that we live on earth. This soul-companion, the daimon, guides us here; in the process of arrival, however, we forget all that took place and believe we come empty into this world. The daimon remembers what is in your image and belongs to your pattern, and therefore your daimon is the carrier of your destiny.”

SoulDestinyDaemonSpirit GuideDaimon
Book:The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling
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“For centuries we have searched for the right term for this "call". The Romans named it your 'genius'; the Greeks, your 'daimon'; and the Christians your guardian angel. The Romantics, like Keats, said the call came from the heart, and Michelangelo's intuitive eye saw an image in the heart of the person he was sculpting. The Neoplatonists referred to an imaginal body, the 'ochema', that carried you like a vehicle. It was your personal bearer or support. For some it is Lady Luck or Fortuna; for others a genie or jinn, a bad seed or evil genius. In Egypt, it might have been the 'ka', or the 'ba' with whom you could converse. Among the people we refer to as Eskimos and others who follow shamanistic practices, it is your spirit, your free-soul, your animal-soul, your breath-soul.”

SoulGeniusFortuneDaemonLady LuckImaginalDaimon
Book:The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling
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“Present in body and absent in spirit, he lies back on the couch, shamed by his own… potentials in his soul that will not be subdued. He feels himself inwardly subversive, imagining in his passivity extremes of aggression and desire that must be suppressed. Solution: more work, more money, more drink, more weight, more things, more infotainment.”

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Book:The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling
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“Ecology movements, futurism, feminism, urbanism, protest and disarmament, personal individuation cannot alone save the world from the catastrophe inherent in our very idea of the world. They require a cosmological vision that saves the phenomenon 'world' itself, a move in soul that goes beyond measures of expediency to the archetypal source of our world's continuing peril: the fateful neglect, the repression, of the anima mundi.”

WorldIdeasSoulMovingVisionFeminismDangerMovementSourceNuclearProtestNeglectPhenomenonOur WorldInherentContinuingEcologyCatastrophePerilNot AloneRepressionSave The WorldDisarmamentExpediencyIndividuationFuturism
Book:City and Soul: Uniform Edition
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“In the cosmology behind psychology, there is no reason for anyone to be here or to do anything... I'am an accident - a result - and therefore a victim... if I'm only a result of past causes, then I'm a victim of those past causes.... or, if you look at it from the sociological perspective, I'm the result of upbringing, class, race, gender, social prejudices, and economics. So I'm a victim again. A result .”

IfsLooksReasonPastSocialCausesResultsRaceBehindsClassPsychologyPerspectiveEconomicsPrejudiceVictimGenderAccidentsNo ReasonUpbringingCosmologySociological
Author:James Hillman
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“There is more in a human life than our theories of it allow. Sooner or later something seems to call us onto a particular path. You may remember this "something" as a signal moment in childhood when an urge out of nowhere, a fascination, a peculiar turn of events struck like an annunciation: This is what I must do, this is what I've got to have. This is who I am.”

HumansMayPhilosophyMomentsSeemsRememberTurnsPathChildhoodEventsParticularTheoryWho I AmHuman LifeUrgesPeculiarSooner Or LaterSignalsFascination
Author:James Hillman
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“Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don't want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure.”

WantDifferentStatesFactsLossUnitedUnited StatesHappenedCapitalismEmpiresCategoriesFifteenBackwardsInfrastructureFragilityExceptionalismAmerican Exceptionalism
Author:James Hillman
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“The capacity for people to kid themselves is huge. Living on illusions or delusions, and the re-establishing of these illusions or delusions requires a big effort to keep them from being seen through. But a very old idea is at work behind our current state of affairs: enantiodromia, or the Greek notion of things turning into their opposite.”

PeopleIdeasStatesBigsKidsEffortBehindsHugeIllusionCapacityOppositesNotionAffairCurrentsGreekDelusionLiving OnOld Ideas
Author:James Hillman
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“Your life is not predestined, as in Calvinist thought, where everything is written down in the book of life long before your birth and is inescapable. There are choices, accidents, hints and wrong paths, and the ego you, or whatever you call yourself, is a factor in all this. But there is still this other factor that keeps calling. At some moment, people turn, in despair or when they are unable to go any longer on a certain route, and this inner voice says, "Where have you been? I've been waiting for you to turn to me for a long time."”

PeopleLongStillsBookMomentsLife IsCertainTurnsChoicesWaitingVoicePathWrittenBirthCallingEgoDespairLong TimeAccidentsFactorsRoutesLong LifeHintsInner VoiceWaiting For YouPredestinedWrong PathBook Of Life
Author:James Hillman
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