Carl Jung

Quotes

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of being.
Show me a sane man, and I will cure him for you.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.
The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.
Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.
Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better.
All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.
In studying the history of the human mind one is impressed again and again by the fact that the growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and that each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement. One could almost say that nothing is more hateful to man than to give up even a particle of his unconsciousness. Ask those who have tried to introduce a new idea!
It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are themselves.
The teacher pretended that algebra was a perfectly natural affair, to be taken for granted, whereas I didn't even know what numbers were. Mathematics classes became sheer terror and torture to me. I was so intimidated by my incomprehension that I did not dare to ask any questions.
An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.
Creative powers can just as easily turn out to be destructive. It rests solely with the moral personality whether they apply themselves to good things or to bad. And if this is lacking, no teacher can supply it or take its place
Religion is a defense against the experience of God.
The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.
I could not say I believe. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.
We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
The word "happiness" would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off.
The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.
I have always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way.
To me dreams are part of nature, which harbors no intention to deceive but expresses something as best it can.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.
The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.
Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
No nation keeps its word. A nation is a big, blind worm, following what? Fate perhaps. A nation has no honor, it has no word to keep.
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.
A shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.
Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.
Death is psychologically as important as birth. Shrinking away from it is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.
I could not say I believe � I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God.
I cannot love anyone if I hate myself. That is the reason why we feel so extremely uncomfortable in the presence of people who are noted for their special virtuousness, for they radiate an atmosphere of the torture they inflict on themselves. That is not a virtue but a vice.
If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.
If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.
Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.
Nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood.
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.
Science is the tool of the Western mind and with it more doors can be opened than with bare hands. It is part and parcel of our knowledge and obscures our insight only when it holds that the understanding given by it is the only kind there is.
The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.
The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.