Best 71 quotes of C. G. Jung on MyQuotes

Acolo unde predomină materialismul raţionalist statele se transformă mai puţin în nişte închisori, cât în nişte ospicii.

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.

A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally shortsighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well-disciplined mob can do in the hands of a single madman. Unfortunately, this realization does not seem to have penetrated very far - and our blindness is extremely dangerous.

As understanding deepens, the further removed it becomes from knowledge.

Avšak jako tvůrčí člověk je jedinec vystaven tomu, že není svobodný, nýbrž jej poutá a pudí démon.

But no matter how much parents and grandparents may have sinned against the child, the man who is really adult will accept these sins as his own condition which has to be reckoned with. Only a fool is interested in other people's guilt, since he cannot alter it. The wise man learns only from his own guilt. He will ask himself: Who am I that all this should happen to me? To find the answer to this fateful question he will look into his own heart.

But there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites; hence it is necessary to discover the opposite to the attitude of the conscious mind.

Carl Jung never said: “There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” What Dr. Jung said in two separate and unrelated statements was: Seldom, or perhaps never, does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises; there is no coming to consciousness without pain. ~Carl Jung, Contributions to Analytical Psychology, P. 193 People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 99.

Člověk se přirozeně nemůže od dětství osvobodit, aniž by se jím podrobně nezabýval, jak již dlouho víme z Freudových výzkumů. Čistě intelektuálním věděním přitom nelze ničeho dosáhnout. Účinné je pouze rozpomenutí se, které je zároveň znovuprožitím. Mnohé zůstane nevyřešené díky rychlému plynutí let a přemáhajícímu proudu věmů z právě odhalovaného světa. Od toho se člověk neosvobodil, nýbrž jenom vzdálil. Vrátí-li se tedy z pozdějších let zpátky k dětským vzpomínkám, nalezne tam ještě živé části vlastní osobnosti, které se ho pevně chytí, připojí se k němu a prosytí jej znovu pocitem dřívějších let. Tyto části jsou ale dosud ve stavu dětství, a proto silné a bezprostřední. Pouze jsou-li opět spojeny s dospělým vědomím, mohou pozbýt svůj infantilní apekt a mohou být upraveny. Vždy musí být nejprve prozkoumáno toto "osobní nevědomí", to znamená musí dojít k jeho uvědomění, jinak nelze otevřít vstup ke kolektivnímu nevědomí.

Co se od našich vzorů můžeme naučit, je především ta skutečnost, že duše skrývá obsahy nebo je vystavena vlivům, jejichž asimilace se pojí s největšími nebezpečími. Když tedy staří alchymisté své tajemství připisovali hmotě a Faust ani Zarathuštra nás nikterak nepovzbuzují k tomu, abychom je k sobě přičlenili, nezbývá asi nic jiného, než ten arogantní nárok vědomí, aby bylo samo duší, odmítnout a přiznat duši skutečnost, již našimi současnými rozumovými prostředky nejsme schopni pochopit. Nepovažuji za tmáře toho, kdo přizná svou nevědomost, nýbrž toho, jehož vědomí není ještě ani tak vyvinuto, že o své nevědomosti nic neví. Jsem toho názoru, že alchymistické očekávání, že z hmoty lze zhotovit filosofické zlato nebo všelék nebo zázračný Kámen, je sice na jedné straně iluzí (jejíž příčinou je projekce), ale na straně druhé odpovídá psychickým skutečnostem, jimž v psychologii nevědomí připadá velký význam. Alchymista totiž, jak dokazují texty a jejich symbolika, projikoval proces individuace do chemických procesů proměny.

For the alchemist the one primarily in need of redemption is not man, but the deity who is lost and sleeping in matter. Only as a secondary consideration does he hope that some benefit may accrue to himself from the transformed substance as the panacea, the medicina catholica, just as it may to the imperfect bodies, the base or "sick" metals, etc. His attention is not directed to his own salvation through God's grace, but to the liberation of God from the darkness of matter.

If it be true that there can be no metaphysics transcending human reason, it is no less true that there can be no empirical knowledge that is not already caught and limited by the a priori structure of cognition.

If I want to understand an individual human being, I must lay aside all scientific knowledge of the average man and discard all theories in order to adopt a completely new and unprejudiced attitude. I can only approach the task of understanding with a free and open mind, whereas knowledge of man, or insight into human character, presupposes all sorts of knowledge about mankind in general.

If only a world-wide consciousness could arise that all division and fission are due to the splitting of opposites in the psyche, then we should know where to begin.

If you go to thinking take your heart with you. If you go to love, take your head with you. Love is empty without thinking, thinking hollow without love

I myself recently dreamed that a UFO came speeding towards me which turned out to be the lens of a magic lantern whose projected image was myself; this suggested to me that I was the figure, himself deep in meditation, who is produced by a meditating yogi.

I should advise you to put it all down as beautifully & as carefully as you can—in some beautifully bound book. It will seem as if you were making the visions banal—but then you need to do that—then you are freed from the power of them. . . . Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book & turn over the pages & for you it will be your church—your cathedral—the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal. If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them—then you will lose your soul—for in that book is your soul.

It is not the universal and the regular that characterize the individual, but rather the unique. He is not to be understood as a recurrent unit but as something unique and singular which in the last analysis can be neither known nor compared with anything else.

It is the truth, a force of nature that expresses itself through me – I am only a channel – I can imagine in many instances where I would become sinister to you. For instance, if life had led you to take up an artificial attitude, then you wouldn't be able to stand me, because I am a natural being. By my very presence I crystallize; I am a ferment. The unconscious of people who live in an artificial manner senses me as a danger. Everything about me irritates them, my way of speaking, my way of laughing. They sense nature.

It is true that widely accepted ideas are never the personal property of their so-called author; on the contrary, he is the bond-servant of his ideas. Although they come into being at a definite time, they are and have always been timeless; they arise from that realm of procreative, psychic life out of which the ephemeral mind of the single human being grows like a plant that blossoms, bears fruit and seed, and then withers and dies. Ideas spring from a source that is not contained within one man's personal life. We do not create them; they create us.

It is under all circumstances an advantage to be in full possession of one's personality, otherwise the repressed elements will only crop up as a hindrance elsewhere, not just at some unimportant point, but at the very spot where we are most sensitive. If people can be educated to see the shadow-side of their nature clearly, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more self-knowledge 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.

It [Joyce's "Ulysses"] plays on the reader's sympathies to his own undoing unless sleep kindly intervenes and puts a stop to this drain of energy. Arrived at page 135, after making several heroic efforts to get at the book, to "do it justice", as the phrase goes, I fell at last into profound slumber.

Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but as you touch a human soul be just another human soul.

Man is much more the victim of his psychic constitution than its inventor.

Medicine has until recently gone on the supposition that illness should be treated and cured by itself; yet voices are now heard which declare this view to be wrong, and demand the treatment of the sick person and not of the sickness. The same demand is forced upon us in the treatment of psychic suffering.

Muselo to tak být, protože alchymisté vůbec nevěděli, o čem vlastně píší. Zda to víme dnes my, nezdá se mi zcela jisté. Buď jak buď, už nevěříme, že tajemství spočívá v chemické látce, ale spíše v jistém temném pozadí psýché, o němž ovšem nevíme, z čeho se vlastně skládá. Bude asi muset opět uběhnout několik staletí, než novou temnotu odkryjeme; vychází z ní to, co nechápeme, a přece to pociťujeme s nejkrajnější jistotou jako něco působivého.

My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart.

My intellect would wish for a clear-cut universe with no dim corners, but there are these cobwebs in the cosmos.

Náboženské symboly jsou fenomény života, prostě skutečnostmi, nikoli názory. Když církev po takovou a takovou dobu lpí na tom, že Slunce obíhá kolem Země, ale v 19. století toto hledisko opouští, pak se může v tomto ohledu odvolat na psychologickou pravdu, že pro miliony lidí vskutku Slunce obíhalo kolem Země a teprve v 19. století dosáhlo větší množství lidí takové jistoty intelektuální funkce, že mohli uznat důkazy o planetární povaze Země. Bohužel neexistuje žádná pravda bez lidí, kteří ji chápou.

Naturally, at first, one is inclined to regard such differences as mere individual idiosyncrasies. But anyone with the opportunity of gaining a fundamental knowledge of many men will soon discover that such a far-reaching contrast does not merely concern the individual case, but is a question of typical attitudes, with a universality far greater than a limited psychological experience would at first assume. In reality, as the preceding chapters will have shown, it is a question of a fundamental opposition; at times clear and at times obscure, but always emerging whenever we are dealing with individuals whose personality is in any way pronounced. Such men are found not only among the educated classes, but in every rank of society; with equal distinctness, therefore, our types can be demonstrated among labourers and peasants as among the most differentiated members of a nation. Furthermore, these types over-ride the distinctions of sex, since one finds the same contrasts amongst women of all classes. Such a universal distribution could hardly arise at the instigation of consciousness, ie. as the result of a conscious and deliberate choice of attitude. If this were the case, a definite level of society, linked together by a similar education and environment and, therefore, correspondingly localized, would surely have a majority representation of such an attitude. But the actual facts are just the reverse, for the types have, apparently, quite a random distribution. In the same family one child is introverted, and another extraverted.

Ne înşelăm dacă credem că inconştientul este ceva inofensiv … Desigur, el nu este primejdios în orice condiţii; dar de îndată ce apare o nevroză, acesta e un semn că în inconştient există o acumulare de energie, adică un fel de încărcătură care poate exploda … Săpăm cumva ca să dăm de o fântână arteziană şi riscăm să ne izbim de un vulcan.

No one has any obligations to a concept; that is what is so agreeable about conceptuality—it promises protection from experience.

Not your thinking, but your being, is distinctiveness. Therefore not after difference, ye think it, must ye strive; but after YOUR OWN BEING. At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely, the striving after your own being.

Osamělost nevzniká tím, že by člověk kolem sebe neměl lidi, nýbrž spíše tím, že jim nemůže sdělit věci, které se mu jeví jako důležité, nebo že považuje za platné myšlenky, které jiní považují za nepravděpodobné.

School came to bore me. It took up far too much time which I would rather have spent drawing battles and playing with fire.

Stín odpovídá negativní jáské osobnosti, zahrnuje tedy všechny ty vlastnosti, jejichž existence je trýznivá a politováníhodná. V tomto případě jsou stín a anima, protože jsou oba nevědomí, spolu kontaminovány, což sen znázorňuje jako "manželství". Jestliže je existence animy (nebo stínu) uznána a nahlédnuta, dojde k oddělení obou postav, jako se to stalo v našem případě. Přitom stín je rozpoznán jako příslušný k já, anima ale jako nikoli příslušná k já.

That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ, all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least o’ my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yeah, the very fiend himself, that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved. What then? Then, as a rule, the whole truth of Christianity is reversed: there is then no more talk of love and long-suffering; we say to the brother within us “Raca,” and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide him from the world, we deny ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves, and had it been God himself who drew near to us in this despicable form, we should have denied him a thousand times before a single cock had crowed.

That we are bound to the earth does not mean that we cannot grow; on the contrary it is the sine qua non of growth. No noble, well-grown tree ever disowned its dark roots, for it grows not only upward but downward as well.

That you find Kierkegaard "frightful" has warmed the cockles of my heart. I find him simply insupportable and cannot understand, or rather, I understand only too well, why the theological neurosis of our time has made such a fuss over him. You are quite right when you say that the pathological is never valuable. It does, however, cause us the greatest difficulties and for this reason we learn the most from it.

The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us "Raca," and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.

The book [Joyce's "Ulysses"] can just as well be read backwards, for it has no back and no front, no top and no bottom. Everything could easily have happened before, or might have happened afterwards. You can read any of the conversations just as pleasurably backwards, for you don't miss the point of the gags. Every sentence is a gag, but taken together they make no point. You can also stop in the middle of a sentence--the first half still makes sense enough to live by itself, or at least seems to. The whole work has the character of a worm cut in half, that can grow a new head or a new tail as required.

The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image, and in elaborating and shaping this image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present, and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life. Therein lies the social significance of art: it is constantly at work educating the spirit of the age, conjuring up the forms in which the age is most lacking.

The difference between the "natural" individuation process, which runs its course unconsciously, and the one which is consciously realized, is tremendous. In the first case consciousness nowhere intervenes; the end remains as dark as the beginning. In the second case so much darkness comes to light that the personality is permeated with light, and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and insight. The encounter between conscious and unconscious has to ensure that the light which shines in the darkness is not only comprehended by the darkness, but comprehends it. The filius solis et lunae (the son of the Sun and Moon) is the possible result as well as the symbol of this union of opposites. It is the alpha and omega of the process, the mediator and intermedius. "It has a thousand names," say the alchemists, meaning that the source from which the individuation process rises and the goal toward which it aims is nameless, ineffable.

The erotic instinct is something questionable, and will always be so whatever a future set of laws may have to say on the matter. It belongs, on the one hand, to the original animal nature of man, which will exist as long as man has an animal body. On the other hand, it is connected with the highest forms of the spirit. But it blooms only when the spirit and instinct are in true harmony. If one or the other aspect is missing, then an injury occurs, or at least there is a one-sided lack of balance which easily slips into the pathological. Too much of the animal disfigures the civilized human being, too much culture makes a sick animal.

The goal and meaning of individual life (which is the only real life) no longer lie in individual development but in the policy of the State, which is thrust upon the individual from outside and consists in the execution of an abstract idea which ultimately tends to attract all life to itself.

The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers. Carl Jung Swiss psychologist (1875 - 1961)

The ideas of the moral order and of God belong to the ineradicable substrate of the human soul.

The mass State has no intention of promoting mutual understanding and the relationship of man to man; it strives, rather, for atomization, for the psychic isolation of the individual.

...the mind that is collectively orientated is quite incapable of thinking and feeling in any other way than by projection.

There are people, of course, who think it unscientific to take anything seriously; they do not want their intellectual playground disturbed by graver considerations. But the doctor who fails to take account of man's feelings for values commits a serious blunder, and if he tries to correct the mysterious and well-nigh inscrutable workings of nature with his so-called scientific attitude, he is merely putting his shallow sophistry in place of nature's healing processes.