Carl Jung Quotations 32

The same is true of the religious attitude: it must be fully conscious of itself and of its foundations if it is to signify anything more than
unconscious imitation. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 106

Symbols are not allegories and not signs; they are images of contents which for the most part transcend consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 114

The dream, we would say, originates in an unknown part of the psyche and prepares the dreamer for the events of the following day. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 5

One such successful interpretation has been, for instance, Mother Church, but once this form begins to show signs of age and decay a new interpretation becomes inevitable. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 351

The religious interest, which ought normally to be the greatest and most decisive factor, turned away from the inner world, and great figures of dogma dwindled to strange and incomprehensible vestiges, a prey to every sort of criticism. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 113.

The psychology of an individual can never be exhaustively explained from himself alone: a clear recognition is needed of the way it is also conditioned by historical and environmental circumstances. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 717

Again, no psychological fact can ever be exhaustively explained in terms of causality alone; as a living phenomenon, it is always indissolubly bound up with the continuity of the vital process, so that it is not only something evolved but also continually evolving and creative. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 717

Complexes are focal or nodal points of psychic life which we would not wish to do without; indeed, they should not be missing, for otherwise psychic activity would come to a fatal standstill. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 925

This function of mediation between the opposites I have termed the transcendent function, by which I mean nothing mysterious, but merely a combined function of conscious and unconscious elements, or, as in mathematics, a common function of real and imaginary qualities. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 184

Symbol-formation, therefore, must obviously be an extremely important biological function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 402

The symbol is the middle way along which the opposites flow together in a new movement, like a watercourse bringing fertility after a long drought. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 443.

The soul gives birth to images that from the rational standpoint of consciousness are assumed to be worthless. And so they are, in the sense that they cannot immediately be turned to account in the objective world. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 426

Childlikeness or lack of prior assumptions is of the very essence of the symbol and its function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 442

Suffering that is not understood is hard to bear, while on the other hand it is often astounding to see how much a person can endure when he understands the why and the wherefore. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1578

Job realizes God’s inner antinomy, and in the light of this realization his knowledge attains a divine numinosity. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 584

We must never forget that Christ was an innovator and revolutionary, executed with criminals. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

The reformers and great religious geniuses were heretics. It is there that you find the footprints of the Holy Spirit, and no one asks for him or receives him without having to pay a high price. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

Why was that cruel immolation of the Son necessary if the anger of the "deus ultionum" is not hard to appease? One doesn't notice much of the Father's goodness and love during the tragic end of his Son. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

Today as never before it is important that human beings should not overlook the danger of the evil lurking within them. ~Carl Jung, CW ii, Para 98.

Only an infantile person can pretend that evil is not at work everywhere, and the more unconscious he is, the more the devil drives him. ~Carl Jung, CW ii, Para 255.

Just as the unconscious world of mythological images speaks indirectly, through the experience of external things, to the man who surrenders wholly to the outside world, so the real world and its demands find their way indirectly to the man who has surrendered wholly to the soul; for no man can escape both realities. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 280

If the old were not ripe for death, nothing new would appear; and if the old were not injuriously blocking the way for the new; it could not and need not be rooted out. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 446.

The creation of a symbol is not a rational process, for a rational process could never produce an image that represents a content which is at bottom incomprehensible. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 171, CW 6, Para 425

The Symbol always says; in some such form as this a new manifestation of life will become possible, a release from bondage and world-weariness. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 425.

The redeeming symbol is a highway, a way upon which life can move forward without torment and compulsion. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 445.