Quotes from C.G. Jung

But, as once Gilgamesh, bringing back the magic herb from the Western Land (cf. pl. XIX), was robbed of his treasure by the demon-serpent, so Hölderlin's poem dies away in a painful lament, which tells us that his descent to the shadows will be followed by no resurrection in this world:

I have observed that a life directed to an aim is in general better, richer, and healthier than an aimless one, and that it is better to go forwards with the stream of time than backwards against it.

But it also happens at times that dreams genuinely tell us something about other people. In this way, the unconscious plays a role that is far from being fully understood. Like all the higher forms of life, man is in tune with the living beings around him to a remarkable degree. He perceives their sufferings and problems, their positive and negative attributes and values, instinctively-quite independently of his conscious thoughts about other people.

Man does not make his ideas; we could say that man's ideas make him.

This recognition, that one must give up the retrospective longing which only wants to resuscitate the torpid bliss and effortlessness of childhood, before the "heavenly ones" wrench the sacrifice from us (and with it the entire man), came too late to the poet.

Practical experience teaches us as a general rule that a psychic activity can find a substitute only on the basis of equivalence. A pathological interest, for example, an intense attachment to a symptom, can be replaced only by an equally intense attachment to another interest. . .

The Yogin realizes that all the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Devatas with which he has filled the heavens are Maya illusion just as the world itself is Maya. All this plurality is illusion.

Hasta que no hagas consciente lo que llevas en tu inconsciente, este último dirigirá tu vida y tú le llamarás destino

Os sentidos do homem limitam a percepção que este tem do mundo à sua volta.

In other words, it is quite within the bounds of possibility for a man to recognize the relative evil of his nature, but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of absolute evil.

Just when people were congratulating themselves on having abolished [the belief in demons], it turned out that instead of haunting the attic or old ruins the [demons] were flitting about in the heads of apparently normal Europeans. Tyrannical, obsessive, intoxicating ideas and delusions were abroad everywhere, and people began to believe the most absurd things, just as the possessed do.

there is a conflict in our lives between adventure and discipline, or evil and virtue, or freedom and security. But these are only phrases we use to describe an ambivalence that troubles us, and to which we never seem able to find an answer.

visul este o autoprezentare spontan?, într-o form? de exprimare simbolic?, a situaÅ£iei actuale a inconÅŸtientului.

Quien ha nacido y venido a este mundo para conocer la verdad, no puede perseverar en la ignorancia, el impulso es real en él, es indómito y rebelde. Sufre enórmemente bajo el peso y dominio de la falsedad, la calumnia, el engaño, la muerte continua; está sediento de libertad, de justicia, de vida real y de verdad

How are you fulfilling your life's task ([your] "mission"), your raison d'être, the meaning and purpose of your existence? This is the question of individuation, the most fateful of all questions. . .

only down below can we find the fiery source of life.

Myth is the revelation of divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth; rather it speaks to us as a Word of God. No science will ever replace myth, and a myth cannot be made out of any science. For it is not that 'God' is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth; rather it speaks to us as a Word of God.

In short, Jung's insights need to be considered as one of the latest and greatest manifestations of the stream of alternative spirituality which descends from the Gnostics.130

But all our attempts have proved to be singularly ineffectual, and will continue to do so as long as we try to convince ourselves and the world that it is only they, our opponents, who are all wrong, morally and philosophically.

Then the One, that was hidden in the shell, Was born through the force of fiery torment. From it there arose in the beginning love,170 Which is the germ and the seed of knowledge. The wise found the root of being in not-being By investigating the impulses of the human heart.

A comment on these men is made in the dream: "It is said they are dead." But Henry is alone. Who makes the statement? It is a voice—and when a voice is heard in a dream it is a most meaningful occurrence. Dr. Jung identified the appearance of a voice in dreams with an intervention of the Self. It stands for a knowledge that has its roots in the collective fundamentals of the psyche. What the voice says cannot be disputed.

man does not live very long in the infantile environment or in the bosom of his family without real danger to his mental health. Life calls him forth to independence, and he who gives no heed to this hard call because of childish indolence and fear is threatened by a neurosis, and once the neurosis has broken out it becomes more and more a valid reason to escape the battle with life and to remain for all time in the morally poisoned infantile atmosphere.

This peculiar psychotic material cannot be derived from the conscious mind, because the latter lacks the premises which would help to explain the strangeness of the ideas. Neurotic contents can be integrated without appreciable injury to the ego, but psychotic ideas cannot. They remain inaccessible, and ego-consciousness is more or less swamped by them. They even show a distinct tendency to draw the ego into their "system.

When a man can say of his states and actions, 'As I am, so I act,' he can be at one with himself, even though it be difficult, and he can accept responsibility for himself even though he struggle against it.