45 Clever Quotes from Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung (born July 26, 1875, Kesswil, Thurgau, Switzerland – died June 6, 1961, Küsnacht, Zürich, Switzerland) was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of the school of analytical psychology.
Jung created some of the most known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypes, the psychological complex, and the principle of individuation. He also developed the concepts of the extraverted and the introverted personality and the power of the unconscious.
Jung was also prolific writer and many of his works were not published until after his death. Some of his most popular books are Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962), Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933), and Man and His Symbols (1964).
His work has been influential not only in psychiatry but also in archaeology, anthropology, literature, religion, and many other related fields.
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Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people. Letter to Kendig B. Cully (September 25, 1937)
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As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.‘Chapter XI: On Life after Death,’ Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)
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The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. ‘Chapter III: The Aims of Psychotherapy,’ Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
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We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. ‘Chapter V: Psychotherapists or the Clergy (1932),’ Psychology and Religion: West and East (1959), Vol. 11, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other. ‘Chapter IV. The Problem of the Attitude-Type,’ Psychology of the Unconscious (1912)
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A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them. ‘Chapter IX: Travels,’ Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)
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In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.‘ Chapter I: Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious (1954),’ The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1959), Vol. 9, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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Often the hands know how to solve a riddle with which the intellect has wrestled in vain. ‘Chapter I: The Transcendent Function (1916),’ The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (1960), Vol. 8, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. ‘Chapter II: Problems of Modern Psychotherapy,’ Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
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Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism. ‘Chapter XII: Late Thoughts,’ Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)
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The healthy man does not torture others—generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers. Return to the Simple Life (1941)
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The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves. ‘Chapter II: Schiller’s Ideas on the Type Problem,’ Psychological Types (1921)
Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble. Letter to Frances G. Wickes (November 6, 1926)
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Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better. ‘Chapter V: The Gifted Child (1946),’ The Development of Personality (1954), Vol. 17, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. ‘Chapter IX: Travels,’ Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)
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Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also. ‘Chapter VI: Freud and Jung—Contrasts,’ Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
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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. ‘Chapter XV: Conclusion,’ Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (1951), Part 2, Vol. 9, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. ‘Chapter III: The Symbolism of the Mandala,’ Psychology and Alchemy (1952), Vol. 12, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem. ‘Chapter I: Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious (1954),’ The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1959), Vol. 9, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable. ‘Chapter I: The Problem of Types in the History of Classical and Medieval Thought,’ Psychological Types (1921)
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Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.Letter to Fanny Bowdich (October 22, 1916)
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Recognition of the reality of evil necessarily relativizes the good, and the evil likewise, converting both into halves of a paradoxical whole.‘Chapter XII: Late Thoughts,’ Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)
Emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion. ‘Chapter II: Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype (1954),’ The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1959), Vol. 9, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.‘Chapter III: The Aims of Psychotherapy,’ Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong. ‘Chapter V: Sigmund Freud,’ Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)
The word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. ‘The Art of Living’, interview with journalist Gordon Young first published in 1960.
The greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble. They must be so, for they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. ‘Chapter I: Commentary on ‘The Secret of the Golden Flower’ (1957),’ Alchemical Studies (1967), Vol. 13, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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Great gifts are the fairest, and often the most dangerous, fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang on the weakest branches, which easily break.‘Chapter V: The Gifted Child (1946),’ The Development of Personality (1954),’ Vol. 17, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health. ‘Chapter I: The Transcendent Function (1916),’ The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (1960), Vol. 8, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely. ‘Retrospect,’ Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)
Where pride is insistent enough, memory prefers to give way. ‘Part 1: Approaching the Unconscious,’ Man and His Symbols (1964)
It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts. ‘Chapter III: After the Catastrophe (1945),’ Civilization in Transition (1964), Vol. 10, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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If there is anything that we wish to change in our children, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. ‘Chapter VII: The The Development of Personality (1934),’ The Development of Personality (1954), Vol. 17, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool. ‘Chapter III: The Personification of the Opposites,’ Mysterium Coniunctionis (1956), Vol. 14, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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You can take away a man’s gods, but only to give him others in return. ‘Chapter IV: The Undiscovered Self (Present and Future) (1957),’ Civilization in Transition (1964), Vol. 10, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. ‘Retrospect,’ Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)
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I had always been impressed by the fact that there are surprisingly many individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and yet are not stupid, and an equal number who obviously do use their minds but in an amazingly stupid way.‘Chapter II: Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams (1961),’ The Symbolic Life, Vol. 18, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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A special ability means a heavy expenditure of energy in a particular direction, with a consequent drain from some other side of life.‘Chapter VIII: Psychology and Literature,’ Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
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The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition. ‘Chapter III: After the Catastrophe (1945),’ Civilization in Transition (1964), Vol. 10, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to [abandon exact science] put away his scholar’s gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through the world. New Paths in Psychology (1912)
Without freedom there can be no morality. ‘Chapter II: The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious,’ Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (1953)
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As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who will undergo it and carry it through. The change must begin with one individual; it might be any one of us. Nobody can afford to look around and to wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself. ‘Chapter II: Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams (1961),’ The Symbolic Life, Vol. 18, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself. ‘Chapter IV: The Undiscovered Self (Present and Future) (1957),’ Civilization in Transition (1964), Vol. 10, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung
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Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. Based on the testimony of Jolande Jacobi as recorded by Vincent Brome (1963)
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