Carl Jung Quotations
It is not I who create myself, rather I happen to myself. ~Carl Jung, CW11, Para 391
Empirically considered, however, the archetype did not ever come into existence as a phenomenon of organic life,
but entered into the picture with life itself. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 222.
Only that which acts upon me do I recognize as real and actual. But that which has no effect upon me might as well not exist. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 757.
What most people overlook or seem unable to understand is the fact that I regard the psyche as real. Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 751
It does not seem to have occurred to people that when we say “psyche” we are alluding to the densest darkness it is possible to imagine. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 448
Mere continuation can be left to the animals, but inauguration is the prerogative of man, the one thing he can boast of that lifts him above the beasts. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 268
Unlived life is a destructive, irresistible force that works softly but inexorably. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 252
Here each of us must ask: Have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God, and hence that certainty which will
keep me, as an individual, from dissolving in the crowd? Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 564
Religion, as the careful observation and taking account of certain invisible and uncontrollable factors, is an instinctive attitude peculiar to man, and its manifestations can be followed all through human history. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 512
A creed coincides with the established Church or, at any rate, forms a public institution whose members include not only
true believers but vast numbers of people who can only be described as “indifferent” in matters of religion and who belong to
it simply by force of habit. Here the difference between a creed and a religion becomes palpable. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 508.
For when the soul vanished at death, it was not lost; in that other world it formed the living counterpole to the state of death in this world. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 493
Whatever man’s wholeness, or the self, may mean per se, empirically it is an image of the goal of life
spontaneously produced by the unconscious, irrespective of the wishes and fears of the conscious
mind. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 745.
If we go further and consider the fact that man is also what neither he himself nor other people know
of him—an unknown something which can yet be proved to exist —the problem of identity
becomes more difficult still. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 140
Indeed, it is quite impossible to define the extent and the ultimate character of psychic existence. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 140
Freud has made a courageous attempt to elucidate the intricacies of dream psychology with the help of views
which he gathered in the field of psychopathology. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 41
My method, like Freud’s, is built up on the practice of confession. Like him, I pay close attention to
dreams, but when it comes to the unconscious our views part company. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 875
For me the unconscious is a collective psychic disposition, creative in character. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 875
Freud’s procedure is, in the main, analytical and reductive. To this I add a synthesis which emphasizes the
purposiveness of unconscious tendencies with respect to personality development. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 875
Behind a man’s actions there stands neither public opinion nor the moral code, but the personality of which he is still
unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 390
When Nietzsche said “God is dead,” he uttered a truth which is valid for the greater part of Europe. People were
influenced by it not because he said so, but because it stated a widespread psychological fact. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 145.
Yet it [Nietzche’s “God is Dead”] has, for some ears, the same eerie sound as that ancient cry which came echoing over the sea
to mark the end of the nature gods: “Great Pan is dead.” ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 145.
All opposites are of God, therefore man must bend to this burden; and in so doing he finds that God in his “oppositeness”
has taken possession of him, incarnated himself in him. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 664.
It is quite right, therefore, that fear of God should be considered the beginning of all wisdom. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 664.
Both are justified, the fear of God as well as the love of God. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 664.
The East bases itself upon psychic reality, that is, upon the psyche as the main and unique condition
of existence. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 770.