The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind's evolution born anew in the brain structure of every individual.
Carl JungUnfortunately, there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and darker it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it
Carl JungBecause the European does not know his own unconscious, he does not understand the East and projects it into everything he fears and despises in himself.
Carl JungSo often among so-called "primitives" one comes across spiritual personalities who immediately inspire respect, as though they were the fully matured products of an undisturbed fate.
Carl JungFor, in order to turn the individual into a function of the State, his dependence on anything beside the State must be taken from him.
Carl JungThere is, however, a strong empirical reason why we should cultivate thoughts that can never be proved. It is that they are known to be useful. Man positively needs general ideas & convictions that will give a meaning to his life & enable him to find a place for himself in the universe. He can stand the most incredible hardships when he is convinced that they make sense; he is crushed when on top of all his misfortunes, he has to admit that he is taking part in a ‘tale told by an idiot.’
Carl JungA particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.
Carl JungWhat usually has the strongest psychic effect on the child is the life which the parents have not lived
Carl JungI have never since entirely freed myself of the impression that this life is a segment of existence which is enacted in a three-dimensional boxlike universe especially set up for it.
Carl JungThe world of gods and spirits is truly 'nothing but' the collective unconscious inside me.
Carl JungThe individual disposition is already a factor in childhood; it is innate, and not acquired in the course of a life.
Carl JungOne is forced to speak not of what is held in common between the cultures, but what is held in common between the myths, and that in its simplest archetypal forms.
Carl JungThe continuing, direct operation of the Holy Ghost on those who are called to be God's children implies, in fact, a broadening process of incarnation. Christ, the son begotten by God, is the first-born who is succeeded by an ever-increasing number of younger brothers and sisters. There are, however, neither begotten by the Holy Ghost nor born of a virgin. . . . Their lowly origin (possibly from the mammals) does not prevent them from entering into a close kinship with God as their father and Christ as their brother.
Carl JungI could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had been born again because I had not fulfilled the task given to me.
Carl Jung...The Western 'God-image' is a representation of the collective unconscious, an archetype of the psyche that undergoes a continual process of transformation...The God image evolves through its relationship to humanity. Whoever knows God has an effect on 'him'. For the individual, knowing God, is the process of recognizing and assimilating the pressured and paradoxical contents of the self, which come to consciousness- seek incarnation- within the ego.
Carl JungThe more one sees of human fate and the more one examines its secret springs of action, the more one is impressed by the strength of unconscious motives and by the limitations of free choice
Carl JungAstrology is assured of recognition from psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.
Carl JungI had always been impressed by the fact that there are surprisingly many individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and yet are not stupid, and an equal number who obviously do use their minds but in an amazingly stupid way.
Carl JungIn the end, the only events of my life worth telling are those when the imperishable world erupted into this transitory one All other memories of travels, people and my surroundings have paled beside these interior happenings But my encounters with the 'other' reality, my bouts with the unconscious, are indelibly engraved on my memory. In that realm there has always been wealth in abundance, and everything else has lost importance by comparison.
Carl JungEverything good is costly, and the development of personality is one of the most costly of all things. It is a matter of saying yes to oneself, of taking oneself as the most serious of tasks, of being conscious of everything one does, and keeping it constantly before one's eyes in all its dubious aspects.
Carl JungSomewhere, right at the bottom of one’s own being, one generally does know where one should go and what one should do. But there are times when the clown we call “I” behaves in such a distracting fashion that the inner voice cannot make its presence felt.
Carl JungEveryone knows nowadays that people 'have complexes'. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.
Carl JungPeople learn from who we are, rather than what we say, and to believe otherwise is a disease of the mind.
Carl Jung