Top 10 Carl Jung Quotes
"Wherever an inferiority complex exists, there is a good reason for it."
—Interview, 1943
"The great problems of life—sexuality, of course, among others—are always related to the primordial images of the collective unconscious. These images are really balancing or compensating factors which correspond with the problems life presents in actuality. This is not to be marveled at, since these images are deposits representing the accumulated experience of thousands of years of struggle for adaptation and existence."
—Psychological Types, 1923
"The conscious mind allows itself to be trained like a parrot, but the unconscious does not—which is why St. Augustine thanked God for not making him responsible for his dreams."
—Psychology and Alchemy, 1953
"The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens into that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was a conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach."
—The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man, 1934
"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other."
—The Psychology of the Unconscious, 1943
"Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism."
—Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1962
"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."
—Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1962
"The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong."
—Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1962
"If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures."
—Two Essays on Analytical Psychology: New Paths in Psychology, 1912
"We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself . . . We know nothing of man, far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil."
—BBC interview, 1959
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User Comments - Add a Comment
Brian - 2008-08-13 14:38:09
These quotes make perfect sense to the FOOL who says their is no God
Fools within, fools without... - 2008-10-21 07:50:38
theirs is no god?
Carl - 2008-10-24 09:19:44
What about fools who missed "their" homonym lesson in grade three.
Vic - 2008-11-20 12:21:11
What??? How does one glean anything about the existence of a god in this material? God is an invention. Man is the source and cure for troubles caused by his lack of awareness and intellect. The brilliance of Carl Jung is lost if you begin to drift into the meaningless discussion of an invisible force that rules the universe. What's the point of doing or studying anything? God is for the primitive minds among us. It's for those who feel unworthy, lowly, fearful and confused.
Phil E. Drifter - 2008-12-31 21:24:52
Indeed, I'm glad to see, this is the first board I've ever seen on the web where atheists outnumber theists. God was an invention to explain the unexplainable in primitive man; then, as the great Bertrand Russell once said, "religion was created when the first scoundrel met the first fool." Belief in god, to paraphrase Richard Dawkins, is to take the cowards way out. (The paraphrasing ends here, the rest is my own.) To blindly throw up your arms and claim 'god did it' is to secede from rational thought on the presumption you can get away with it, never having to study science or math or 100 other fields. Religitards make me incredibly angry.
Peter S. Lopez - 2009-02-15 14:53:27
We are still trying to absorb what he shared with us all.
Chris - 2009-07-18 03:05:08
I don't understand how atheists can define human nature or anything else as "evil" because if God does not exist, the saying goes, all things are permissable and violence is the natural order fo things. In a universe without ultimate reality, without objective truth, without God, what is more natural? The fact that mans corrupted nature and evil are a consistant concern throughout human history, across all religions and cultures, is very telling in my view.
Ranger - 2009-07-29 21:53:19
I completely agree Chris. The atheist is free to create a morality, meaning, hope or other metaphysical categories based on societal values, personal preference or whatever they so choose. After all, they are the ultimate authority in their paradigm. Dawkins understands this when at the end of the God Delusion he urges that we create our own meaning...which to him means continuing as a social Christian. The irony is that in the atheist paradigm, this created meaning or metaphysic is just as illusory as theistic belief. It has absolutely no metaphysical underpinnings and flails about with no grounding or direction.
Dave - 2009-09-08 13:47:57
So what exactly is the difference between a person making up a god to explain the inexplicable, or making up a philosophy to explain the same thing? Or even a "scientific" theory? The hard fact is there is a lot that is entirely beyond our ability to comprehend, and people have a real difficulty saying, "I don't know. I'm working on it, but so far, I just don't know." Don't disparage the theists until you have had a good hard look at your own ideology. It may be based on entirely the same sort of reasoning.
Jacca - 2009-09-10 04:54:09
Dave, learn to research before spouting nonsense: "A theory, in the scientific sense of the word, is an analytic structure designed to explain a set of empirical observations. A scientific theory does two things: 1. it identifies this set of distinct observations as a class of phenomena, and 2. makes assertions about the underlying reality that brings about or affects this class. In the scientific or empirical tradition, the term "theory" is reserved for ideas which meet baseline requirements about the kinds of empirical observations made, the methods of classification used, and the consistency of the theory in its application among members of the class to which it pertains. These requirements vary across different scientific fields of knowledge, but in general theories are expected to be functional and parsimonious: i.e. a theory should be the simplest possible tool that can be used to effectively address the given class of phenomena." ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory A Theory is not a Hypothesis.
John - 2009-09-18 22:23:12
What I do not understand about atheists who profess to admire Jung is their seeming failure to appreciate that their conception of the God who does not exist is just as much a projection of the psyche as the conception of God possessed by believers. As a deep believer, I continue to be amazed at and baffled by what atheists take to be God, and what they take to be the mindset of believers. In my experience, the concept of the numinous is liberating and comprises ultimate mystery and subtlety. Yet the thinking of the Dawkins crowd is simplistic, and as didactic as anything ever pronounced from the Vatican.
Craig - 2009-09-25 04:04:08
Then I'll help you understand Jon. Your fallacy is in not realising that atheists have no "conception of the God who does not exist". We have no belief in *any* god, there is no need to define each god in which we disbelieve. The only time an atheist might define a god is when talking to a believer in that particular god - but that is not the basis of our disbelief. "... the concept of the numinous is liberating and comprises ultimate mystery and subtlety." That is an *affect* it is having on you. It says nothing about reality. "Yet the thinking of the Dawkins crowd is simplistic, and as didactic as anything ever pronounced from the Vatican." Yet you fail to provide any examples. I can equally assert that what you have written here seems simplistic to me. But it is just that - an assertion.
Nick - 2009-10-10 21:32:50
In my mind, both atheism and theism are both differing ways in which individuals try to understand the forces at work in our universe that are beyond the understand of the vast majority.In both cases, the participants put their faith into a process that they feel is correct. Ultimately they are two different approaches to the same question of how everything works and what is our place in the universe, if we have one at all.
Alan - 2008-08-10 14:36:23
One of the greatest minds of the 20th century and he certainly wasn't your usual psychologist. His greatness inspired me to become a psychologist.