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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.”

SoulPsychologyCodeJung
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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“'Mediocre' tends to mean 'undistinguished', while snobs enjoy their distinguishing hallmarks of style - how they wear clothes, use words, where they go and gather and gossip. ...Whatever the circumstances the genius has put you into, the fact of individuality defends the soul against all class-action claims. No soul is mediocre, whatever your personal taste for conventionality, whatever your personal record of middling achievements.”

MeanSoulFactsUseActionEnjoyClassRecordsStyleGeniusCircumstancesTasteAchievementClothesClaimsIndividualityGossipMediocreHallmarkSnobConventionalityPersonal Taste
Author:James Hillman
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“How can we know ourselves by ourselves? . . . Soul needs intimate connection, not only to individuate, but simply to live. For this we need relationships of the profoundest kind through which we can realize ourselves, where self-revelation is possible, where interest in and love for soul is paramount.”

KnowsLoveInspirationalNeedsKindSoulSelfInterestRealizingKnowingPsychologyRelationshipConnectionsAnd LoveIntimateRevelationsParamountIndividuationStrong RelationshipSelf Revelation
Book:The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology
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“Rather let us imagine the anima mundi as that particular soul-spark, that seminal image, which offers itself through each thing in its visible form. Then anima mundi indicates the animated possibilities presented by each new event as it is, its sensuous presentation as a face bespeaking its interior image - in short, its availability to imagination, its presence as psychic reality. Not only animals and plants ensouled as in the Romantic vision, but soul is given with each thing, God-given things of nature and man-made things of the street.”

MenMadeSoulRealityFacesFormGivenImaginationAnimalVisionImagineStreetsEventsPossibilityParticularOffersPlantVisibleSparksInteriorsPsychicsPresentationAnimatedAvailabilitySensuousMan And NatureMan Made Things
Book:City and Soul: Uniform Edition
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“It helps to regard soul as an active intelligence, forming and plotting each person's fate. Translators use "plot" to render the ancient Greek word mythos in English. The plots that entangle our souls and draw forth our characters are the great myths. That is why we need a sense of myth and knowledge of different myths to gain insight into our epic struggles, our misalliances, and our tragedies. Myths show the imaginative structures inside our messes, and our human characters can locate themselves against the background of the characters of myth.”

NeedsHumansPersonsDifferentSoulCharacterHelpingUseShowsStruggleFateDrawsGainsTragedyRegardStructureAncientInsightActiveMythBackgroundsMessGreekPlotEpicImaginativeTranslatorsAncient Greek
Book:The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life
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“Aging is no accident. It is necessary to the human condition, intended by the soul. We become more characteristic of who we are simply by lasting into later years; the older we become, the more our true natures emerge. Thus the final years have a very important purpose: the fulfillment and confirmation of one’s character.”

YearsHumansImportantSoulCharacterPurposeConditionsAgingFinalsAccidentsFulfillmentCharacteristicsWho We AreLastingHuman ConditionTrue NatureConfirmation
Author:James Hillman
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