Carl Jung quotes

We shall probably get nearest to the truth if we think of the conscious and personal psyche as resting upon the broad basis of an inherited and universal psychic disposition which is as such unconscious, and that our personal psyche bears the same relation to the collective psyche as the individual to society.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

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

Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

A 'scream' is always just that - a noise and not music.

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

We shall probably get nearest to the truth if we think of the conscious and personal psyche as resting upon the broad basis of an inherited and universal psychic disposition which is as such unconscious, and that our personal psyche bears the same relation to the collective psyche as the individual to society.

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

Just as we might take Darwin as an example of the normal extraverted thinking type, the normal introverted thinking type could be represented by Kant. The one speaks with facts, the other relies on the subjective factor. Darwin ranges over the wide field of objective reality, Kant restricts himself to a critique of knowledge.

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.

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

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

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. 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.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.

Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

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. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

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.

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed a bridge: on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.

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.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

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