Some Great Carl Jung Quotations
“True” alchemy was never a business or a career, but a genuine opus to be achieved by
quiet, self-sacrificing work. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 422.
It seems as if all the personal entanglements and dramatic changes of fortune that make up
the intensity of life were nothing but hesitations, timid shrinking, almost like petty complications
and meticulous excuses for not facing the finality of this strange and uncanny process of
crystallization. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 326.
Often one has the impression that the personal psyche is running around this central point like a shy animal, at
once fascinated and frightened, always in flight, and yet steadily drawing nearer. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 326.
In the last analysis every life is the realization of a whole, that is, of a self, for which reason this
realization can also be called “individuation.” ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 330
All life is bound to individual carriers who realize it, and it is simply inconceivable without them. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 330
But every carrier is charged with an individual destiny and destination, and the realization of these alone makes
sense of life. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 330
Experience, not books, is what leads to understanding. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 564
In the East, mind is a cosmic factor, the very essence of existence; while in the West we have just begun to understand
that it is the essential condition of cognition, and hence of the cognitive existence of the world. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 768.
The philosophy of the East, although so vastly different from ours, could be an inestimable treasure for us too;
but, in order to process it, we must first earn it. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 961.
There is no conflict between religion and science in the East, because no science is there based
upon the passion for facts, and no religion upon mere faith; there is religious cognition and cognitive
religion. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 768.
With us, man is incommensurably small and the grace of God is everything; but in the East, man is God and he
redeems himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 768.
While the Western mind carefully sifts, weighs, selects, classifies, isolates, the Chinese picture of the moment
encompasses everything down to the minutest nonsensical detail, because all of the ingredients make up the observed moment. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 969
We believe in doing, the Indian in impassive being. Our religious exercises consist of prayer, worship, and
singing hymns. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 911.
The Indian’s most important exercise is yoga, an immersion in what we would call an unconscious state, but
which he praises as the highest consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 911.
The Indian’s most important exercise is yoga, an immersion in what we would call an unconscious state, but
which he praises as the highest consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 911.
The goal of Eastern religious practice is the same as that of Western mysticism: the shifting of the center of gravity from the ego
to the self, from man to God. This means that the ego disappears in the self, and man in God. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 958
If I can help it, I never preach my belief. If asked I shall certainly stand by my convictions, but these do not go beyond what I consider to be my actual knowledge. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 79.
Religion appears to me to be a peculiar attitude of mind which could be formulated in accordance with the original use
of the word religio, which means a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors that are conceived as
“powers”: spirits, daemons, gods, laws, ideas, ideals, or whatever name man has given to such factors in his world as he has
found powerful, dangerous, or helpful enough to be taken into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful, and meaningful enough
to be devoutly worshipped and loved. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 8.
The numinosum is either a quality belonging to a visible object or the influence of an invisible
presence that causes a peculiar alteration of consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 6
Holiness is also revelatory: it is the illuminative power emanating from an archetypal figure. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 225.
But, fortunately, the man [Wolfgang Pauli] had religio, that is, he “carefully took account of” his experiences and he
had enough pistis, or loyalty to his experience, to enable him to hang on to it and continue it. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 74.
There is religious sentimentality instead of the numinosum of divine experience. This is the well-known characteristic of a religion that has lost its living mystery. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 52
But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and in as much as you attain
to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 377
Religion is the fruit and culmination of the completeness of life, that is, of a life which
contains both sides. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 71.
It is also a fact that under the influence of a so-called scientific enlightenment great masses of
educated people have either left the Church or become profoundly indifferent to it. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 34.
I am not, however, addressing myself to the happy possessors of faith, but to those many people
for whom the light has gone out, the mystery has faded, and God is dead. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 148.