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 Zurich. 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.
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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, Meaning
All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insolvable. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Acceptance, Realistic Expectations
Called or not called, God is present.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Science is the tool of the Western mind and with it more doors can be opened than with bare hands. It is part and parcel of our knowledge and obscures our insight only when it holds that the understanding given by it is the only kind there is.
—Carl Gustav Jung
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
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
The pendulum of the mind alternates between
sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.
—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: Awareness, Self-Knowledge
The point is not to live Christ’s life but for us to live our own lives as truly as Christ lived his.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Man cannot stand a meaningless life.
—Carl Gustav Jung
We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Acceptance, Helping
Man is never helped in his suffering by what he thinks for himself, but only by revelation of a wisdom greater than his own. It is this which lifts him out of his distress.
—Carl Gustav Jung
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
If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Understanding
The wine of youth does not always clear with advancing years; sometimes it grows turbid.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Youth
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Accomplishment, Creativity
Nobody, as long as he moves among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.
—Carl Gustav Jung
The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
—Carl Gustav Jung
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
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Only that which changes remains true.
—Carl Gustav Jung
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. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Happiness
Where love rules, there is no will to power; where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
—Carl Gustav Jung
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
To the psychotherapist an old man who cannot bid farewell to life appears as feeble and sickly as a young man who is unable to embrace it.
—Carl Gustav Jung
Topics: Death, Life
The Self is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
—Carl Gustav Jung
I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.
—Carl Gustav Jung
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