Carl Jung Depth Psychology: Some Carl Jung Quotations

The problem of crucifixion is the beginning of individuation; there is the secret meaning of the Christian symbolism, of blood and suffering. ~Carl Jung, unpublished letter, quoted in Gerhard Adler, Aspects of Jung's Personality and Work, p. 12.

Analysis should release an experience that grips us or falls upon us as from above, an experience that has substance and body such as those things which occurred to the ancients. If I were going to symbolize it I would choose the Annunciation. ~Carl Jung, Seminar 1925, p. 111.

The earthly fate of the Church as the body of Christ is modelled on the earthly fate of Christ himself. That is to say the Church, in the course of her history, moves towards a death. ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par. 28, note 194.

Egocentricity is a necessary attribute of consciousness and is also its specific sin." ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par. 364.

Psychological treatment cannot rid you of the basic facts of your nature; it can only give you the necessary insight, and only to the extent that you are capable of it. ~Carl Jung [Letters Volume 1, Page 292.]

I had to recognize that I am only the expression and symbol of the soul. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 234.

You say: the Christian God is unequivocal, he is love. But what is more ambiguous than love? Love is the way of life, but your love is only on the way of life if you have a left and a right. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 244.

If a complete or divine consciousness were possible, there would be no projection, which means that there would be no world, because the world is the definiteness of the divine projection. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 132.

In the shadow we are exactly like everybody; in the night all cats are grey-there is no difference. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 1090

Life that doesn't overcome itself is really meaningless: it is not life; only inasmuch as life surpasses itself does it make sense. . ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 1105.

Many people mistakenly overestimate the role of will power and think that nothing can happen to their minds that they do not decide and intend. ~Carl Jung; Man and His symbols; P. 22

He who sleeps in the grave of the millennia dreams a wonderful dream. He dreams a primordially ancient dream. He dreams of the rising sun. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 272

As a natural scientist, thinking and sensation were uppermost in me and intuition and feeling were in the unconscious and contaminated by the collective unconscious. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 75

Our age is seeking a new spring of life. I found one and drank of it and the water tasted good. ~Carl Jung, C. G. Jung, Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology, Page 443.

Children are educated by what the grownup is and not by what he says. ~Carl Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, The Psychology of the Child Archetype, Page 174.

The individual ego is the stable in which the Christ-child is born. ~Carl Jung; CW 11, Para 207

The attainment of wholenesss requires one to stake one's whole being. Nothing less will do; there can be no easier conditions, no substitutes, no compromises. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 556.

No science will ever replace myth, and a myth cannot be made out of any science. For it is not that "God" is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Page 340.

The universal hero myth always refers to a powerful man or god-man who vanquishes evil in the form of dragons, serpents, monsters, demons, and so on, and who liberates his people from destruction and death. The narration or ritual repetition of sacred texts and ceremonies, and the worship of such a figure with dances, music, hymns, prayers, and sacrifices, grip the audience with numinous emotions and exalt the individual to an identification with the hero. ~Carl Jung; Man and His Symbols; Page 68.

The myth of the necessary incarnation of God . . . can be understood as man's creative confrontation with the opposites and their synthesis in the self, the wholeness of his personality. . . . That is the goal . . . which fits man meaningfully into the scheme of creation and at the same time confers meaning upon it. –Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Page 338.

. . . Christianity slumbers and has neglected to develop its myth further in the course of the centuries. . . . Our myth has become mute, and gives no answers. ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections; Chapter 12.

Myth is the revelation of divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth; rather it speaks to us as a Word of God. No science will ever replace myth, and a myth cannot be made out of any science. For it is not that "God" is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth; rather it speaks to us as a Word of God. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Page 340.

. . . So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know “my” myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks. . . . I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me, from what rhizome I sprang. ~Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation, xxiv–xxv.

We cannot slay death, as we have already taken all life from it. If we still want to overcome death, then we must enliven it. Therefore on your journey be sure to take golden cups full of the sweet drink of life, red wine, and give it to dead matter, so that it can win life back. ~Carl Jung; The Red Book; Page 244.

Loneliness is for me a source of healing that makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment to me, and I need several days of silence to recover the futility of words. ~Carl Jung

Thank God I’m Jung and not a Jungian. ~Carl Jung, Jung: A Biography (Hannah), Page 78.

Life inevitably leads down into reality. Life is of the nature of water: it always seeks the deepest place, which is always below in the darkness and heaviness of the earth. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 508.

Spirit cannot be learned, it is given to us by God's grace, which cannot be had by force or reason. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 293.

The unconscious is largely identical with the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, which are the physiological counterparts of the polarity of unconscious contents. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 278.

Oh outstanding vessel of devotion and obedience! To the ancestral spirits of my most beloved and faithful wife Emma Maria. She completed her life and after her death she was lamented. She went over to the secret of eternity in the year 1955. Her age was 73. Her husband C.G. .Jung has made and placed [this stone] in 1956.

European philosophy must take into account the existence of feminine psychology. ~Carl Jung to Richard Wilhelm, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 67-68.

I am not quarrelsome but combative by nature and I cannot conceal from you my secret pleasure. ~Carl Jung to Erich Neumann, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 514-515.

… the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego.” ~Carl Jung, CW 14, Par. 778.

Since psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world, and moreover are in continuous contact with one another and ultimately rest on irrepresentable, transcendental factors, it is not only possible but fairly probable, even, that psyche and matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing. ~Carl Jung; CW 8, ¶ 420.

Men who have understanding should not just believe, but should wrestle for knowledge to the best of their ability. Belief is not everything, but neither is knowledge. Belief does not give us the security and the wealth of knowing. Desiring knowledge sometimes takes away too much belief. Both must strike a balance. ~Carl Jung; The Red Book; Page 336.

He [Hitler] really is the incarnation of the German's psychopathic inferiority, which also accounts for the German's feeling of national inferiority. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 367-368.

Dreams as a whole are without purpose, like nature herself, it is wiser to regard them as such. The third question asks if we can dream of experiences undergone by our ancestors. I cannot be sure of this. There are so many curious sources from which we dream, that we cannot say for certain where anything comes from. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 8March1935, Pages 198.

Miracles are symbols for a heightened understanding of life; learning to fly without wings, telepathy, Yoga practices, etc., all belong psychologically to this heightened consciousness. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 1May1935, Pages 203.

Everyone has complexes, there is nothing to be ashamed of in that; it would in fact be highly suspicious if we found someone who had no complexes, for these are the fires of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 1May1935, Pages 203.

All dreams originate in the unconscious though occasionally a dream can be induced by suggestion or hypnosis. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 1May1935, Pages 202.

Dreams can spring from physical or psychic causes, a dream can be caused by hunger, fever, cold, et cetera, but even then the dreams themselves are made of psychic material. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 1May1935, Pages 202.

Complexes can also be called fragmentary souls. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 1May1935, Pages 201.

We do not know why the Christian "Weltanschauung" exists, and why it is so insisted upon. The real reason is that these things lie under it, these essential roots of man; they belong to the secret teaching and had to be hidden, the Church was built over them and because of this people have become cut off from their roots. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 8March1935, Pages 200.