Carl Jung Quotes & Sayings

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself. — Carl Jung

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them. — Carl Jung

A criminal becomes a popular figure because he unburdens in no small degree the consciences of his fellow man, for now they know once more where evil is to be found. — Carl Jung

Because the European does not know his own unconscious, he does not understand the East and projects it into everything he fears and despises in himself. — Carl Jung

Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the Shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular. — Carl Jung

Shadow work is the path of the heart warrior. — Carl Jung

Every human being is inherently a unique and individual form of life. He or she is made like that. But there is something which a person can do over and above the given material of her nature, and that is she can become conscious of what makes her the person she is, and he can work consciously toward relating what is himself to the world around him. — Carl Jung

So they speak soothingly about progress and the greatest possible happiness, forgetting that happiness is itself poisoned if the measure of suffering has not been fulfilled. — Carl Jung

Just imagine what would happen if practicing physicians, the ones who have come into contact directly with suffering humanity, had some acquaintance with Eastern systems of healing. The Spirit of the East surges through every pore as a balm for all afflictions. — Carl Jung

The mandala is an archetypal image whose occurrence is attested throughout the ages. It signifies the wholeness of the self. This circular image represents the wholeness of the psychic ground or, to put it in mythic terms, the divinity incarnate in man. — Carl Jung

Aging people should know that their lives are not mounting and unfolding but that an inexorable inner process forces the contraction of life. For a young person it is almost a sin and certainly a danger to be too much occupied with himself; but for the aging person it is a duty and a necessity to give serious attention to himself. — Carl Jung

Enchantment is the oldest form of medicine. — Carl Jung

I readily admit that I have such a great respect for what happens in the human soul that I would be afraid of disturbing and distorting the silent operation of nature by clumsy interference. — Carl Jung

I've realized that somebody who's tired and needs a rest, and goes on working all the same is a fool. — Carl Jung

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 — Carl Jung

We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. — Carl Jung

Not only does the psyche exist, but it is existence itself. It is an almost absurd prejudice to suppose that existence can only be physical ... We might well say, on the contrary, that physical existence is a mere inference, since we know of matter only in so far as we perceive psychic images mediated by the senses. — Carl Jung

We can keep from a child all knowledge of earlier myths, but we cannot take from him the need for mythology. — Carl Jung

Anthropologists have often described what happens to a primitive society when its spiritual values are exposed to the impact of modern civilisation. Its people lose the meaning of their lives, their social organisation disintegrates, and they themselves morally decay. We are now in the same condition. But we have never really understood what we have lost, for our spiritual leaders unfortunately were more interested in protecting their institutions than in understanding the mystery that symbols present. — Carl Jung

Psychoanalysis cannot be considered a method of education if by education we mean the topiary art of clipping a tree into a beautiful artificial shape. But those who have a higher conception of education will prize most the method of cultivating a tree so that it fulfils to perfection its own natural conditions of growth. — Carl Jung

Hitler is a shy and friendly man with artistic tastes and gifts. — Carl Jung

In sleep, fantasy takes the form of dreams. But in waking life, too, we continue to dream beneath the threshold of consciousness, especially when under the influence of repressed or other unconscious complexes. — Carl Jung

The symbols of the self arise from the depths of the body. — Carl Jung

The collective unconscious appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious. We can see this most clearly if we look at the heavenly constellations, whose originally chaotic forms are organized through the projection of images. This explains the influence of the stars as asserted by astrologers. These influences are nothing but unconscious instrospective perceptions of the collective unconscious. — Carl Jung

The inner man has access to the sense organs of god. — Carl Jung

The unconscious process moves spiral-wise around a center, gradually getting closer, while the characteristics of the center grow more and more distinct. — Carl Jung

True art is creation, and creation is beyond all theories. That is why I say to any beginner: Learn your theories as well as you can, but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul. Not theories but your own creative individuality alone must decide. — Carl Jung

We are convinced that certain people have all the bad qualities we do not know in ourselves. — Carl Jung

If our religion is based on salvation, our chief emotions will be fear and trembling. If our religion is based on wonder, our chief emotion will be gratitude. — Carl Jung

Our souls as well as our bodies are composed of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors. The "newness" in the individual psyche is an endlessly varied recombination of age-old components. — Carl Jung

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. — Carl Jung

An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. — Carl Jung

In some way or other we are part of a single, all-embracing psyche, a single 'greatest man ... ' — Carl Jung

To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem. — Carl Jung

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 more lacking. The unsatisfied yearning of the artist reaches back to the primordial image in the unconscious, which is best fitted to compensate the inadequacy and one-sidedness of the present. The artist seizes on this image and, in raising it from deepest unconsciousness, he brings it into relation with conscious values, thereby transforming it until it can be accepted by the minds of his contemporaries according to their powers. — Carl Jung

Moreover, my ancestors' souls are sustained by the atmosphere of the house, since I answer for them the questions that their lives once left behind. I carve out rough answers as best I can. I have even drawn them on the walls. It is as if a silent, greater family, stretching down the centuries, were peopling the house. — Carl Jung

If you want to understand the jungle, you can't be content just to sail back and forth near the shore. You've got to get into it, no matter how strange and frightening it might seem. — Carl Jung

Wisdom accepts that all things have two sides — Carl Jung

To become acquainted with oneself is a terrible shock. — Carl Jung

I know that in many things I am not like others, but I do not know what I really am like. Man cannot compare himself with any other creature; he is not a monkey, not a cow, not a tree. I am a man. But what is it to be that? Like every other being, I am a splinter of the infinite deity, but I cannot contrast myself with any animal, any plant or any stone. Only a mythical being has a range greater than man's. How then can man form any definite opinions about himself?. — Carl Jung

Ultimate truth, if there be such a thing, demands the concert of many voices. — Carl Jung

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 — Carl Jung

You can take away a man's gods, but only to give him others in return. — Carl Jung

The psychotherapist learns little or nothing from his successes. They mainly confirm him in his mistakes, while his failures, on the other hand, are priceless experiences in that they not only open up the way to a deeper truth, but force him to change his views and methods. — Carl Jung

A special ability means a heavy expenditure of energy in a particular direction, with a consequent drain from some other side of life. — Carl Jung

Identification with one's office or title is very attractive indeed, which is precisely why so many men are nothing more than the decorum accorded to them by society. In vain would one look for a personality behind the husk. Underneath one would find a very pitiable little creature. That is why the office is so attractive: it offers easy compensation for personal deficiencies. — Carl Jung

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? — Carl Jung

Primitive superstition lies just below the surface of even the most tough-minded individuals, and it is precisely those who most fight against it who are the first to succumb to its suggestive effects. — Carl Jung

The Shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge, and it therefore, as a rule, meets with considerable resistance. Indeed, self-knowledge as a psychotherapuetic measure frequently requires much painstaking work extending over a long period of time. — Carl Jung

When facts are few, speculations are most likely to represent individual psychology. — Carl Jung

What happens in the life of Christ happens always and everywhere. In the Christian archetype all lives of this kind are prefigured. — Carl Jung

I live in my deepest hell and from there I cannot fall any further. — Carl Jung

The symbol in the dream has more the value of a parable: it does not conceal, it teaches. — Carl Jung

For, in order to turn the individual into a function of the State, his dependence on anything beside the State must be taken from him. — Carl Jung

When goals go, meaning goes. When meaning goes, purpose goes. When purpose goes, life goes dead on our hands. — Carl Jung

In the child, consciousness rises out of the depths of unconscious psychic life, at first like separate islands, which gradually unite to form a 'continent,' a continuous landmass of consciousness. Progressive mental development means, in effect, extension of consciousness. — Carl Jung

Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King, a Palace, a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on an Island somewhere in the ocean 5,000 years ago ... Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the Soul. This is the Center, the Self. — Carl Jung

It is only our deeds that reveal who we are. — Carl Jung

Consciousness can keep only a few images in full clarity at one time, and even this clarity fluctuates. — Carl Jung

A book of mine is always a matter of fate. There is something unpredictable about the process of writing, and I cannot prescribe for myself any predetermined course. — Carl Jung

A complex is a cluster of energy in the unconscious, charged by historic events, reinforced through repitition, embodying a fragment of our personality, and generating a programmed response and an implicit set of expectations. — Carl Jung

In each of us is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from the way we see ourselves. — Carl Jung

The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image and elaborating and shaping the 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. — Carl Jung

Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see. — Carl Jung

The Self then functions as a union of opposites and thus constitutes the most immediate experience of the Divine which it is psychologically possible to imagine — Carl Jung

Rebirth is an affirmation that must be counted among the primordial affirmations of mankind. The concept of rebirth necessarily implies the continuity of personality. Here the human personality is regarded as continuous and accessible to memory, so that, when one is incarnated or born, one is able, potentially, to remember that one has lived through previous existences, and that these existences were one's own, ie, they had the same ego form as the present life. As a rule, reincarnation means rebirth in a human body. — Carl Jung

Astrology is of particular interest to the psychologist, since it contains a sort of psychological experience which we call projected - this means that we find the psychological facts as it were in the constellations. This originally gave rise to the idea that these factors derive from the stars, whereas they are merely in a relation of synchronicity with them. I admit that this is a very curious fact which throws a peculiar light on the structure of the human mind. — Carl Jung

I know that previously I would not have dared to express myself so explicitly about so uncertain a matter. I can take this risk because I am now in my eighth decade, and the changing opinions of men scarcely impress me any more; the thoughts of the old masters are of greater value to me than the philosophical prejudices of the Western mind. — Carl Jung

The utter failure came at the Crucifixion in the tragic words, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' If you want to understand the full tragedy of those words you must realize what they meant: Christ saw that his whole life, devoted to the truth according to his best conviction, had been a terrible illusion. He had lived it to the full absolutely sincerely, he had made his honest experiment, but it was nevertheless a compensation. On the cross his mission deserted him. But because he had lived so fully and devotedly he won through to the Resurrection body. — Carl Jung

Your vision will be clearer only when you manage to see within your heart. — Carl Jung

The answer to human life is not to be found within the limits of human life. — Carl Jung

The Christian religion seems to have fulfilled its great biological purpose, in so far as we are able to judge. It has led human thought to independence, and has lost its significance, therefore, to a yet undetermined extent ... It seems to me that we might still make use in some way of its form of thought, and especially of its great wisdom of life, which for two thousand years has proven to be particularly efficacious. — Carl Jung

The secret of artistic creation and the effectiveness of art is to be found in a return to the state of 'participation mystique' - to that level of experience at which it is man who lives, and not the individual ... — Carl Jung

It had become clear to me, in a flash of illumination, that for me the only possible goal was psychiatry. Here alone the two currents of my interest could flow together and in a united stream dig their own bed. Here was the empirical field common to biological and spiritual facts, which I had everywhere sought and nowhere found. Here at last was the place where the collision of nature and spirit became a reality. — Carl Jung

Just as man as a social being, cannot in the long run exist without a tie to the community, so the individual will never find the real justification for his existence, and his own spiritual and moral autonomy, anywhere except in an extramundane principle capable of relativizing the overpowering influence of external factors. — Carl Jung

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain. — Carl Jung

Those who look outside, dream. Those who look inside, awaken. — Carl Jung

The judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth. — Carl Jung

The attainment of wholeness requires one to stake one's whole being. Nothing less will do; there can be no easier conditions, no substitutes, no compromises. — Carl Jung

Embrace your grief. For there, your soul will grow. — Carl Jung

But the meaning of life is not ... explained by one's business life, nor is the deep desire of the human heart answered by a bank account. — Carl Jung

One finds one's destiny on the path one takes to avoid it. — Carl Jung

Invited or not, God is present. — Carl Jung

Science is not ... a perfect instrument, but it is a superb and invaluable tool that works harm only when taken as an end in itself. — Carl Jung

There is no birth of consciousness without pain. — Carl Jung

Nobody doubts the importance of conscious experience; why then should we doubt the significance of unconscious happenings? They also are part of our life, and sometimes more truly a part of it for weal or woe than any happenings of the day. — Carl Jung

Many who know something but not enough about dreams and their meaning ... are liable to succumb to the prejudice that the dream actually has a moral purpose, that it warns, rebukes, comforts, foretells the future, etc. If one believes that the unconscious always knows best, one can easily be betrayed into leaving the dreams to take the necessary decisions, and is then disappointed when the dreams become more and more trivial and meaningless ... The unconscious functions satisfactorily only when the conscious mind fufills its task to the very limit. — Carl Jung

What usually has the strongest psychic effect on the child is the life which the parents have not lived — Carl Jung

The only thing we have to fear on this planet is man. — Carl Jung

Never diagnose a (client) until after their therapy is over. — Carl Jung

Fortunately, in her kindness and patience, Nature has never put the fatal question as to the meaning of their lives into the mouths of most people. And where no one asks, no one needs to answer. — Carl Jung

To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. — Carl Jung

Our heart glows, and secret unrest gnaws at the root of our being. Dealing with the unconscious has become a question of life for us. — Carl Jung

You can expect no influence if you are not susceptible to influence. — Carl Jung

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination. — Carl Jung

Yoga in Mayfair or Fifth Avenue, or in any other place which is on the telephone, is a spiritual fake. — Carl Jung

Nature seemed to me full of wonders, and I wanted to steep myself in them. Every stone, every plant, every single thing seemed alive and indescribably marvelous. I immersed myself in nature, crawled, as it were, into the very essence of nature and away from the whole human world. — Carl Jung

If there is anything that 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. — Carl Jung

When you come to think about it, nothing has any meaning, for when there was nobody to think, there was nobody to interpret what happened. — Carl Jung

A mandala is the psychological expression of the totality of the self. — Carl Jung