Quotes from C.G. Jung

But when the extravert proceeds to introvert, he arrives at a state of inferior relatedness to collective ideas, an identity with collective thinking of an archaic, concretistic kind, which one might call sensation-thinking. He loses himself in this inferior function just as much as the introvert in his inferior extraversion.

retreat from life leads to regression, and regression heightens resistance to life.

Because there are innumerable things beyond the range of human understanding, we constantly use symbolic terms to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend

Belief in dogma is an equally unavoidable stop-gap which must sooner or later be replaced by adequate understanding and knowledge if our civilization is to continue.

How perilously fraught with meaning this Eastern relativity of good and evil is, can be seen from the Indian aphoristic question: "Who takes longer to reach perfection, the man who loves God, or the man who hates him?" And the answer is: "He who loves God takes seven reincarnations to reach perfection, and he who hates God takes only three, for he who hates God will think of him more than he who loves him

This is one reason why all religions employ symbolic language or images. But this conscious use of symbols is only one aspect of a psychological fact of great importance: Man also produces symbols unconsciously and spontaneously, in the form of dreams.

see both sides. [We] become aware not only of [our] moral inferiorities but also, automatically, of [our] good qualities. [We] rightly say, "I can't be as bad as all that." To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light.

furnished with the dimmest light, never enough to illuminate the darkness in which they grope.

Hence the extravert has the same repugnance, fear, or silent contempt for introversion as the introvert for extraversion.

The secret of cultural development is the mobility and disposability of psychic energy. Directed thinking, as we know it today, is a more or less modern acquisition which earlier ages lacked.

No sabes aún que el camino hacia la verdad sólo está abierto para el que carece de intenciones?

I felt positively relieved when I had actually done something wrong. Then at least I knew what my guilty conscience was for.

Hence it is of the greatest importance that the ego should be anchored in the world of consciousness and that consciousness should be reinforced by a very precise adaptation. For this, certain virtues like attention, conscientiousness, patience, etc., are of great value on the moral side, just as accurate observation of the symptomatology of the unconscious and objective selfcriticism are valuable on the intellectual side.

The foremost of his therapeutic principles is that conscious realization is an important agent for transforming the personality. The

Deberíamos crecer como un árbol que tampoco sabe de su ley. Sin embargo, nos atamos a intenciones, sin tener en cuenta el hecho de que la intención es limitación, e incluso exclusión de la vida. Creemos poder aclarar una oscuridad con una intención y con ello pasamos por alto la luz. ¿Cómo podemos atrevernos a querer saber por anticipado de dónde nos vendrá la luz?

become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

We have, therefore, two kinds of thinking: directed thinking, and dreaming or fantasy-thinking.

The golden apples drop from the same tree, whether they be gathered by an imbecile locksmith's apprentice or by a Schopenhauer.

With these words Schiller acknowledges the equal rights of sensuousness and spirituality. He concedes to sensation the right to its own existence. But at the same time we can see in this passage the outlines of a still deeper thought: the idea of a "reciprocity" between the two instincts, a community of interest, or, in modern language, a symbiosis in which the waste products of the one would be the food supply of the other.

Where Voegelin seeks to show the Gnostic nature of modernity, Jonas seeks to show the modern nature of Gnosticism. Jonas draws parallels between ancient Gnosticism and modern, secular existentialism to prove that Gnosticism is existentialist, not that existentialism is Gnostic. For Jonas, both philosophies stress above all the radical alienation of human beings from the world.

Notwithstanding our rationalistic attempts to argue it out of existence, psychic reality is and remains a genuine source of anxiety whose danger increases the more it is denied. The biological instincts then meet not only with outer obstacles but with an internal resistance. The same psychic system which, on one side, is based on the concupiscence of the instincts, rests on the other side on an opposing will which is at least as strong as the biological urge.

The more that consciousness is influenced by prejudices, errors, fantasies, and infantile wishes, the more the already existing gap will widen into a neurotic dissociation and lead to a more or less artificial life far removed from healthy instincts, nature, and truth.

These moral evaluations are optical illusions, however: the life force is beyond moral judgment.

The psyche is still a foreign, almost unexplored country of which we have only indirect knowledge; it is mediated by conscious functions that are subject to almost endless possibilities of deception.