Carl Jung Quotations 37

It is not I who create myself, rather I happen to myself. ~Carl Jung, CW11, Para 391

Empirically considered, however, the archetype did not ever come into existence as a phenomenon of organic life, but entered into the picture with life itself. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 222.

Only that which acts upon me do I recognize as real and actual. But that which has no effect upon me might as well not exist. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 757.

What most people overlook or seem unable to understand is the fact that I regard the psyche as real. Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 751

It does not seem to have occurred to people that when we say “psyche” we are alluding to the densest darkness it is possible to imagine. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 448

Mere continuation can be left to the animals, but inauguration is the prerogative of man, the one thing he can boast of that lifts him above the beasts. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 268

Unlived life is a destructive, irresistible force that works softly but inexorably. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 252

Here each of us must ask: Have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God, and hence that certainty which will keep me, as an individual, from dissolving in the crowd? Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 564

Religion, as the careful observation and taking account of certain invisible and uncontrollable factors, is an instinctive attitude peculiar to man, and its manifestations can be followed all through human history. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 512

A creed coincides with the established Church or, at any rate, forms a public institution whose members include not only true believers but vast numbers of people who can only be described as “indifferent” in matters of religion and who belong to it simply by force of habit. Here the difference between a creed and a religion becomes palpable. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 508.

For when the soul vanished at death, it was not lost; in that other world it formed the living counterpole to the state of death in this world. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 493

Whatever man’s wholeness, or the self, may mean per se, empirically it is an image of the goal of life spontaneously produced by the unconscious, irrespective of the wishes and fears of the conscious mind. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 745.

If we go further and consider the fact that man is also what neither he himself nor other people know of him—an unknown something which can yet be proved to exist —the problem of identity becomes more difficult still. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 140

Indeed, it is quite impossible to define the extent and the ultimate character of psychic existence. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 140

Freud has made a courageous attempt to elucidate the intricacies of dream psychology with the help of views which he gathered in the field of psychopathology. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 41

My method, like Freud’s, is built up on the practice of confession. Like him, I pay close attention to dreams, but when it comes to the unconscious our views part company. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 875

For me the unconscious is a collective psychic disposition, creative in character. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 875

Freud’s procedure is, in the main, analytical and reductive. To this I add a synthesis which emphasizes the purposiveness of unconscious tendencies with respect to personality development. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 875

Behind a man’s actions there stands neither public opinion nor the moral code, but the personality of which he is still unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 390

When Nietzsche said “God is dead,” he uttered a truth which is valid for the greater part of Europe. People were influenced by it not because he said so, but because it stated a widespread psychological fact. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 145.

Yet it [Nietzche’s “God is Dead”] has, for some ears, the same eerie sound as that ancient cry which came echoing over the sea to mark the end of the nature gods: “Great Pan is dead.” ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 145.

All opposites are of God, therefore man must bend to this burden; and in so doing he finds that God in his “oppositeness” has taken possession of him, incarnated himself in him. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 664.

It is quite right, therefore, that fear of God should be considered the beginning of all wisdom. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 664.

Both are justified, the fear of God as well as the love of God. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 664.

The East bases itself upon psychic reality, that is, upon the psyche as the main and unique condition of existence. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 770.