The voices / 131 fragments

C.G. Jung

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01Undated

The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us "Raca," and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.

C.G. Jung / quote

02Undated

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.

C.G. Jung / quote

03Undated

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.

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04Undated

How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole

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05Undated

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

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06Undated

I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success of money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon. Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning. If they are enabled to develop into more spacious personalities, the neurosis generally disappears.

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07Undated

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

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08Undated

The gods have become our diseases.

C.G. Jung / quote

09Undated

Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.

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10Undated

The majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith.

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11Undated

When you are up against a wall, put down roots like a tree, until clarity comes from deeper sources to see over that wall and grow.

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12Undated

With a truly tragic delusion,” Carl Jung noted, “these theologians fail to see that it is not a matter of proving the existence of the light, but of blind people who do not know that their eyes could see. It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing.

C.G. Jung / quote

13Undated

I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has really been healed who did not regain his religious outlook.

C.G. Jung / quote

14Undated

Christians often ask why God does not speak to them, as he is believed to have done in former days. When I hear such questions, it always makes me think of the rabbi who asked how it could be that God often showed himself to people in the olden days whereas nowadays nobody ever sees him. The rabbi replied: "Nowadays there is no longer anybody who can bow low enough."This answer hits the nail on the head. We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions. The Buddhist discards the world of unconscious fantasies as useless illusions; the Christian puts his Church and his Bible between himself and his unconscious; and the rational intellectual does not yet know that his consciousness is not his total psyche.

C.G. Jung / quote

15Undated

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.

C.G. Jung / quote

16Undated

Astrology is assured of recognition from psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.

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17Undated

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

C.G. Jung / quote

18Undated

But it seems to me to be an imperfection in things of beauty, and a weakness in man, if an explanation from the shallow-side has a destructive effect. The horror which we feel for Freudian interpretations is entirely due to our own barbaric or childish naivete, which believes that there can be heights without corresponding depths, and which blinds us to the really "final" truth that, when carried to extremes, opposites meet.

C.G. Jung / quote

19Undated

Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next.

C.G. Jung / quote

20Undated

Where your fear is,there is your task.

C.G. Jung / quote

21Undated

Nights through dreams tell the myths forgotten by the day.

C.G. Jung / quote

22Undated

The girl dreams she is dangerously ill. Suddenly birds come out of her skin and cover her completely ... Swarms of gnats obscure the sun, the moon, and all the stars except one. That one start falls upon the dreamer.

C.G. Jung / quote

23Undated

The sight of a child…will arouse certain longings in adult, civilized persons — longings which relate to the unfulfilled desires and needs of those parts of the personality which have been blotted out of the total picture in favor of the adapted persona.

C.G. Jung / quote

24Undated

We have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.

C.G. Jung / quote