Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Carl Gustav Jung (Swiss Psychologist)

Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychologist. He was the founder of analytical psychology and established many significant methods of psychiatric therapy.

Born in Kesswil, Switzerland, Jung studied medicine at the universities of Basle and Zürich. He made his name as a psychiatrist with his physiological and psychological studies of schizophrenia. He initially collaborated with Sigmund Freud on psychoanalytic theories of personality but split-up later because of Freud’s obsession with sexuality as the determinant of personality.

Jung’s foremost interest was the unconscious backdrop of conscious life; he assigned much meaning to dreams. He originated the concept of an introvert and extrovert personality and the four psychological functions—sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling.

Jung is not regarded as a systematic philosopher, but his religious and spiritual vision—in particular, his interest in oriental religion—have had their influence. In his most important work, The Psychology of the Unconscious (1912,) he described his belief of a collective unconscious, which he synthesized with a theory of archetypes for studying the history and psychology of religion.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Carl Gustav Jung

The wise man who is not heeded is counted a fool, and the fool who proclaims the general folly first and loudest passes for a prophet and Fuhrer, and sometimes it is luckily the other way round as well, or else mankind would long since have perished of stupidity.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Leaders, Leadership

It is the individual’s task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities… interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible….
—Carl Gustav Jung

We should know what our convictions are, and stand for them. Upon one’s own philosophy, conscious or unconscious, depends one’s ultimate interpretation of facts. Therefore it is wise to be as clear as possible about one’s subjective principles. As the man is, so will be his ultimate truth.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Self-Knowledge, Awareness

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Light, Humanity

The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Doubt

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Genius

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: The Mind, Mind

If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Change

The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
—Carl Gustav Jung

There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Emotions

I cannot love anyone if I hate myself. That is the reason why we feel so extremely uncomfortable in the presence of people who are noted for their special virtuousness, for they radiate an atmosphere of the torture they inflict on themselves. That is not a virtue but a vice.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Virtue, Virtues

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Being True to Yourself, Vision

Caution has its place, no doubt, but we cannot refuse our support to a serious venture which challenges the whole of the personality. If we oppose it, we are trying to suppress what is best in man—his daring and his aspirations. And should we succeed, we should only have stood in the way of that invaluable experience which might have given a meaning to life. What would have happened if Paul had allowed himself to be talked out of his journey to Damascus?
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Caution

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. 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.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Sadness, Happiness

The teacher pretended that algebra was a perfectly natural affair, to be taken for granted, whereas I didn’t even know what numbers were. Mathematics classes became sheer terror and torture to me. I was so intimidated by my incomprehension that I did not dare to ask any questions.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Mathematics

Not to be able to grow old is just as ridiculous as to be unable to outgrow childhood.
—Carl Gustav Jung

I want to be freed neither from human beings, nor from myself, nor from nature; for all these appear to me the greatest of miracles.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Nature

The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness on his life.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Thought

If you have nothing at all to create, then perhaps you create yourself.
—Carl Gustav Jung

The Christian missionary may preach the gospel to the poor naked heathen, but the spiritual heathen who populate Europe have as yet heard nothing of Christianity.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Evangelism

The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.
—Carl Gustav Jung

As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who will experience it and carry it through. The change must indeed begin with an individual; it might be any one of us. Nobody can afford to look round and to wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Change

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
—Carl Gustav Jung

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.
—Carl Gustav Jung

Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Solitude

It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Perspective, Miscellaneous, Meaning

Unfortunately, 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 Gustav Jung
Topics: Personality

A criminal becomes a popular figure because he unburdens in no small degree the consciences of his fellow man, for now they know once more where evil is to be found.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Self-Discovery

This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Audiences

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Sanity, Will

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *