Carl Jung Quotes

Intuition does not denote something contrary to reason, but something outside of the province of reason.

Jung introduced the idea of synchronicity to strip off the fantasy, magic, and superstition which surround and are provoked by unpredictable, startling, and impressive events that, like these, appear to be connected.

Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life. … If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature. … Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.

We are the great danger. Psyche is the great danger. How important is to know something about it, but we know nothing about it.

As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.

I have gradually learned to be cautious even in disbelief

In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life of individual. This alone makes history, here alone do the great transformations take place, and the whole future, the whole history of the world, ultimately springs as a gigantic summation from these hidden source in individuals.

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.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

But the shadow is merely somewhat inferior, primitive, unadapted, and awkward; not wholly bad. It even contains childish or primitive qualities which would in a way vitalize and embellish human existence, but convention forbids!

Faith, hope, love, and insight are the highest achievements of human effort. They are found-given-by experience.

Too much of the animal disfigures the civilized human being, too much culture makes a sick animal.

Consciousness naturally resists anything unconscious and unknown. I have already pointed out the existence among primitive peoples of what anthropologists call “misoneism,” a deep and superstitious fear of novelty. The primitives manifest all the reactions of the wild animal against untoward events. But “civilized” man reacts to new ideas in much the same way, erecting psychological barriers to protect himself from the shock of facing something new.

"‎"...the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Modern man can't see God because he doesn't look low enough.