Carl Jung Quotations

Carl Jung Quotations

The Freudian idea that religion is nothing more than a system of prohibitions is very limited and out of touch with what is known about different religions. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 631-632

To be exact, I must say that, although I profess myself a Christian, I am at the same time convinced that the chaotic contemporary situation shows that present-day Christianity is not the final truth. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 631-632

They [ESP] were puzzling to me inasmuch as archetypal constellations are usually more or less momentary and don’t extend over longer periods. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 576-577

I should not wonder at all if synchronistic phenomena would manifest in the form of physiological effects. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 576-577

A man’s lifework is like a ship he has built and equipped himself, launched down the ramp and entrusted to the sea, steered towards a distant goal and then left like a passenger, in order to sit on the shore and gaze after it till it is out of sight.
C.G. Jung ~Letters Vol. II, Page 577

Like all three-dimensional things it [A man’s lifework] gradually sinks below the horizon. C.G. Jung ~Letters Vol. II, Page 577

I have not been there [Oxford] again although I always dreamt and hoped to delve more deeply into the treasures of alchemistic manuscripts at the Bodleian. Fate has decreed otherwise. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 579-580

I had to follow the ineradicable foolishness which furnishes the steps to true wisdom. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 579-580

Since man’s nature is temperamentally set against wisdom, it is incumbent upon us to pay its price by what seems foolish to us. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 579-580

It is indeed a major effort-the magnum opus in fact-to escape in time from the narrowness of its embrace and to liberate our mind to the vision of the immensity of the world, of which we form an infinitesimal part. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 579-580

In spite of the enormity of our scientific cognition we are yet hardly at the bottom of the ladder, but we are at least so far that we are able to recognize the smallness of our knowledge. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 579-580

The older I grow the more impressed I am by the frailty and uncertainty of our understanding, and all the more I take recourse to the simplicity of immediate experience so as not to lose contact with the essentials, namely the dominants which rule human existence throughout the millenniums. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 579-580

As you have found out for yourself, the I Ching consists of readable archetypes, and it very often presents not only a picture of the actual situation but also of the future, exactly like dreams. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 584-585

One could even define the I Ching oracle as an experimental dream, just as one can define a dream as an experiment of a four-dimensional nature. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 584-585

By the way: I must call your attention to the fact that I have no theory that God is a Quaternity. The whole question of quaternity is not a theory at all. It is a phenomenon. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 584-585.

It had to remain hidden because it could not have survived the brutalities of the outside world. But now I am grown so old that I can let go my grip on the world, and its raucous cries fade in the distance. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 585

Although you may not know it, I find it very difficult, both as a psychologist and a human being, to establish any relationship with modern abstract art. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 585-586.

Since one’s feelings seem to be a highly unsuitable organ for judging this kind of art [Modern], one is forced to appeal to the intellect or to intuition in order to gain any access to it. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 585-586.

When I say “Psyche” I mean something unknown, to which I give the name “Psyche.” ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 583-584

If I could not stand criticism I would have been dead long ago, since I have had nothing but criticism for 6o years. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 583-584

As nobody can become aware of his individuality unless he is closely and responsibly related to his fellow beings, he is not withdrawing to an egoistic desert when he tries to find himself. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 592-597

He is a top animal exiled on a tiny speck of planet in the Milky Way. That is the reason why he does not know himself; he is cosmically isolated. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 592-597

The science fiction about travelling to the moon or to Venus and Mars and the lore about Flying Saucers are effects of our dimly felt but none the less intense need to reach a new physical as well as spiritual basis beyond our actual conscious world. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 592-597

Our consciousness only imagines that it has lost its gods; in reality they are still there and it only needs a certain general condition in order to bring them back in full force. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 592-597

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