Psychological Types Quotes

“INTUITION (L. intueri, ‘to look at or into’). I regard intuition as a basic psychological function (q.v.). It is the function that mediates perceptions in an unconscious way. Everything, whether outer or inner objects or their relationships, can be the focus of this perception. The peculiarity of intuition is that it is neither sense perception, nor feeling, nor intellectual inference, although it may also appear in these forms. In intuition a content presents itself whole and complete, without our being able to explain or discover how this content came into existence. Intuition is a kind of instinctive apprehension, no matter of what contents. Like sensation (q.v.), it is an irrational (q.v.) function of perception. As with sensation, its contents have the character of being “given,” in contrast to the “derived” or “produced” character of thinking and feeling (qq.v.) contents. Intuitive knowledge possesses an intrinsic certainty and conviction, which enabled Spinoza (and Bergson) to uphold the scientia intuitiva as the highest form of knowledge. Intuition shares this quality with sensation (q.v.), whose certainty rests on its physical foundation. The certainty of intuition rests equally on a definite state of psychic “alertness” of whose origin the subject is unconscious.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“The alchemist saw the union of opposites under the symbol of the tree, and it is therefore not surprising that the unconscious of present-day man, who no longer feels at home in his world and can base his existence neither on the past that is no more nor on the future that is yet to be, should hark back to the symbol of the cosmic tree rooted in this world and growing up to heaven - the tree that is also man. In the history of symbols this tree is described as the way of life itself, a growing into that which eternally is and does not change; which springs from the union of opposites and, by its eternal presence, also makes that union possible. It seems as if it were only through an experience of symbolic reality that man, vainly seeking his own “existence” and making a philosophy out of it, can find his way back to a world in which he is no longer a stranger.”
― C.G. Jung, Psychological Types

“To be quite accurate, human nature is simply what it is; it has its dark and its light sides. The sum of all colours is grey - light on a dark background or dark on light.”
― C.G. Jung, Psychological Types

“Aesthetics by its very nature is applied psychology”
― C.G. Jung, Psychological Types

“The esse in anima, then, is a psychological fact, and the only thing that needs ascertaining is whether it occurs but once, often, or universally in human psychology. The datum which is called “God” and is formulated as the “highest good” signifies, as the term itself shows, the supreme psychic value. In other words it is a concept upon which is conferred, or is actually endowed with, the highest and most general significance in determining our thoughts and actions. In the language of analytical psychology, the God-concept coincides with the particular ideational complex which, in accordance with the foregoing definition, concentrates in itself the maximum amount of libido, or psychic energy. Accordingly, the actual God-concept is, psychologically, completely different in different people, as experience testifies. Even as an idea God is not a single, constant being, and still less so in reality. For, as we know, the highest value operative in a human soul is variously located. There are men “whose God is the belly” (Phil. 3 : 19), and others for whom God is money, science, power, sex, etc. The whole psychology of the individual, at least in its essential aspects, varies according to the localization of the highest good, so that a psychological theory based exclusively on one fundamental instinct, such as power or sex, can explain no more than secondary features when applied to an individual with a different orientation.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“Differentiated affects have the further advantage of charm and elegance. They spread about them an air that is aesthetic and beneficial. A surprising number of extraverts practise an art—chiefly music—not so much because they are specially qualified for it as from a desire to make their contribution to social life. Nor is their fault-finding always unpleasant or altogether worthless. Very often it is no more than a well-adapted educative tendency which does a great deal of good. Equally, their dependence on the judgment of others is not necessarily a bad thing, as it often conduces to the suppression of extravagances and pernicious excesses which in no way further the life and welfare of society. It would be altogether unjustifiable to maintain that one type is in any respect more valuable than the other. The types are mutually complementary, and their differences generate the tension that both the individual and society need for the maintenance of life.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“Аз различавам чувството от афекта, въпреки че преходът към афекта е плавен, тъй като всяко чувство, когато достигне известна сила, задейства телесни инервации, а това се превръща в афект.”
― C.G. Jung, Psychological Types

“Identification with one particular function at once produces a tension of opposites. The more compulsive the one-sidedness, and the more untamed the libido which streams off to one side, the more daemonic it becomes. When a man is carried away by his uncontrolled, undomesticated libido, he speaks of daemonic possession or of magical influences. In this sense manas and vac are indeed mighty demons, since they work mightily upon men. All things that produced powerful effects were once regarded as gods or demons. Thus, among the Gnostics, the mind was personified as the serpent-like Nous, and speech as Logos. Vac bears the same relation to Prajapati as Logos to God. The sort of demons that introversion and extraversion may become is a daily experience for us psychotherapists. We see in our patients and can feel in ourselves with what irresistible force the libido streams inwards or outwards, with what unshakable tenacity an introverted or extraverted attitude can take root. The description of manas and vac as “mighty monsters of Brahman” is in complete accord with the psychological fact that at the instant of its appearance the libido divides into two streams, which as a rule alternate periodically but at times may appear simultaneously in the form of a conflict, as an outward stream opposing an inward stream. The daemonic quality of the two movements lies in their ungovernable nature and overwhelming power. This quality, however, makes itself felt only when the instinct of the primitive is already so stunted as to prevent a natural and purposive counter-movement to one-sidedness, and culture not sufficiently advanced for man to tame his libido to the point where he can follow its introverting or extraverting movement of his own free will and intention.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“A conscious capacity for one-sidedness is a sign of the highest culture, but involuntary one-sidedness, i.e., the inability to be anything but one-sided, is a sign of barbarism.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“If play expires in itself without creating anything durable and vital, it is only play, but in the other case it is called creative work. Out of a playful movement of elements whose interrelations are not immediately apparent, patterns arise which an observant and critical intellect can only evaluate afterwards. 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 object it loves.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“The rational functions are, by their very nature, incapable of creating symbols, since they produce only rationalities whose meaning is determined unilaterally and does not at the same time embrace its opposite. The sensuous functions are equally unfitted to create symbols, because their products too are determined unilaterally by the object and contain only themselves and not their opposites. To discover, therefore, that impartial basis for the will, we must appeal to another authority, where the opposites are not yet clearly separated but still preserve their original unity. Manifestly this is not the case with consciousness, since the whole essence of consciousness is discrimination, distinguishing ego from non-ego, subject from object, positive from negative, and so forth. The separation into pairs of opposites is entirely due to conscious differentiation; only consciousness can recognize the suitable and distinguish it from the unsuitable and worthless. It alone can declare one function valuable and the other non-valuable, thus bestowing on one the power of the will while suppressing the claims of the other. But, where no consciousness exists, where purely unconscious instinctive life still prevails, there is no reflection, no pro et contra, no disunion, nothing but simple happening, self-regulating instinctivity, living proportion. (Provided, of course, that instinct does not come up against situations to which it is unadapted, in which case blockage, affects, confusion, and panic arise.)”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“Expect of me no great material wealth of ideas, for that is what I find in you. My need and endeavour is to make much out of little, and, if ever you should realize my poverty in all that men call acquired knowledge, you will perhaps find that in some ways I may have succeeded. Because my circle of ideas is smaller, I traverse it more quickly and oftener, and for that reason can make better use of what small ready cash I own, creating through the form a diversity which is lacking in the content. You strive to simplify your great world of ideas, while I seek variety for my small possessions. You have a kingdom to rule, and I only a somewhat numerous family of ideas which I would like to expand into a little universe.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, a characteristic also of the child, and as such it appears inconsistent with the principle of serious work.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“We might perhaps say that the thinking of the introvert is rational, while that of the extravert is programmatic.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“In the first case the object works like a magnet upon the tendencies of the subject; it determines the subject to a large extent and even alienates him from himself.”
― C.G. Jung, Psychological Types

“In the pursuit of his ideas he is generally stubborn, head-strong, and quite unamenable to influence. His suggestibility to personal influences is in strange contrast to this. An object has only to be recognized as apparently innocuous for such a type to become extremely accessible to really inferior elements. They lay hold of him from the unconscious. He lets himself be brutalized and exploited in the most ignominious way, if only he can be left undisturbed in the pursuit of his ideas. He simply does not see when he is being plundered behind his back and wronged in practical ways: this is because his relation to the object is such a secondary matter that lie is left without a guide in the purely objective valuation of his product. In thinking out his problems to the utmost of his ability, he also complicates them, and constantly becomes entangled in every possible scruple.”
― C.G. Jung, Psychological Types

“The English mystic William Blake says: “These two classes of men are always upon earth … the Prolific and the Devouring. … Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two.”209 With these words of Blake, which summarize so simply the fundamental ideas of Spitteler and the whole of our previous discussion, I would like to close this chapter. If I have unduly expanded it, it was because I wanted to do full justice to the profusion of stimulating ideas that Spitteler offers us in Prometheus and Epimetheus, just as Schiller did in his Letters. I have, so far as possible, confined myself to essentials; indeed, I have had to pass over a large number of problems which would have to be considered in a comprehensive exposition of the material.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“So if I say God is good, it is not true: I am good, God is not good. I go further: I am better than God! For only what is good can become better, and only what is better can become the best. God is not good, therefore he cannot become better; and since he cannot become better he cannot become the best. These three: good, better, best, are infinitely remote from God, who is above all.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“These moral evaluations are optical illusions, however: the life force is beyond moral judgment.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“The symbol is described by the poet as bizarre, immoral, illicit, outraging our moral feelings and our ideas of the spiritual and divine; it appeals to sensuality, is wanton, and liable to endanger public morals by provoking sexual fantasies. These attributes define something that is blatantly opposed to our moral values and aesthetic judgment because it lacks the higher feeling-values, and the absence of a “guiding thought” suggests the irrationality of its intellectual content. The verdict “opposed to God” might equally well be “anti-Christian,” since this episode is set neither in antiquity nor in the East. By reason of its attributes, the symbol stands for the inferior functions, for psychic contents that are not acknowledged. Although it is nowhere stated, it is obvious that the “image” is of a naked human body—a “living form.” It expresses the complete freedom to be what one is, and also the duty to be what one is. It is a symbol of man as he might be, the perfection of moral and aesthetic beauty, moulded by nature and not by some artificial ideal. To hold such an image before the eyes of present-day man can have no other effect than to release everything in him that lies captive and unlived. If only half of him is civilized and the other half barbarian, all his barbarism will be aroused, for a man’s hatred is always concentrated on the thing that makes him conscious of his bad qualities. Hence the fate of the jewel was sealed the moment it appeared in the world. The dumb shepherd lad who first found it was half cudgelled to death by the enraged peasants, who in the end “hurled” the jewel into the street. Thus the redeeming symbol runs its brief but typical course. The parallel with the Passion is unmistakable, and the jewel’s saviour-nature is further borne out by the fact that it appears only once every thousand years. The appearance of a saviour, a Saoshyant, or a Buddha is a rare phenomenon.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“The birth of the saviour is equivalent to a great catastrophe, because a new and powerful life springs up just where there had seemed to be no life and no power and no possibility of further development.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“The redeeming symbol is a highway, a way upon which life can move forward without torment and compulsion.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“Whereas he who has not God as such an inner possession, but with every means must fetch him from without, in this thing or in that, where he is then sought for in vain, in all manner of works, people, or places; verily such a man has him not, and easily something comes to trouble him. And it is not only evil company that troubles him, but also the good, not only the street, but also the church, not only vile words and deeds, but the good as well. For the hindrance lies within himself, because in him God has not yet become the world. Were God that to him, then all would be well and good with him in every place and with all people, always possessing God.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“Symbols always derive from archaic residues, from racial engrams (imprints), about whose age and origin one can speculate much although nothing definite can be determined. It would be quite wrong to try to derive symbols from personal sources, for instance from repressed sexuality. Such a repression can at most supply the amount of libido required to activate the archaic engram. The engram, however, corresponds to an inherited mode of functioning which owes its existence not to centuries of sexual repression but to the differentiation of instinct in general. The differentiation of instinct was and still is a biological necessity; it is not peculiar to the human species but manifests itself equally in the sexual atrophy of the worker-bee.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“Through insight into the actual existence of his erotic desire, Hermas was able to acknowledge this metaphysical reality. The sensual libido that had previously clung to the concrete object now passed to his soul-image and invested it with the reality which the object had claimed exclusively for itself. Consequently his soul could speak to good effect and successfully enforce her demands.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“This is no matter for astonishment, since these images are deposits of thousands of years of experience of the struggle for existence and for adaptation. Every great experience in life, every profound conflict, evokes the accumulated treasure of these images and brings about their inner constellation. But they become accessible to consciousness only when the individual possesses so much self-awareness and power of understanding that he also reflects on what he experiences instead of just living it blindly. In the latter event he actually lives the myth and the symbol without knowing it.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“If, in the case of Amfortas and the union of spear and Grail, only the sexual problem is discerned, we get entangled in an insoluble contradiction, since the thing that harms is also the thing that heals. Such a paradox is true and permissible only when one sees the opposites as united on a higher plane, when one understands that it is not a question of sexuality, either in this form or in that, but purely a question of the attitude by which every activity, including the sexual, is regulated. Once again I must emphasize that the practical problem in analytical psychology lies deeper than sexuality and its repression. The latter point of view is no doubt very valuable in explaining the infantile and therefore morbid part of the psyche, but as an explanatory principle for the whole of the psyche it is quite inadequate. What lies behind sexuality or the power instinct is the attitude to sexuality or to power. In so far as an attitude is not merely an intuitive (i.e., unconscious and spontaneous) phenomenon but also a conscious function, it is, in the main, a view of life. Our conception of all problematical things is enormously influenced, sometimes consciously but more often unconsciously, by certain collective ideas that condition our mentality. These collective ideas are intimately bound up with the view of life and the world of the past centuries or epochs. Whether or not we are conscious of this dependence has nothing to do with it, since we are influenced by these ideas through the very air we breathe. Collective ideas always have a religious character, and a philosophical idea becomes collective only when it expresses a primordial image. Their religious character derives from the fact that they express the realities of the collective unconscious and are thus able to release its latent energies. The great problems of life, including of course sex, are always related to the primordial images of the collective unconscious. These images are balancing or compensating factors that correspond to the problems which life confronts us with in reality.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“The existence of two mutually antagonistic tendencies, both striving to drag man into extreme attitudes and entangle him in the world, whether on the material or spiritual level, sets him at variance with himself and accordingly demands the existence of a counterweight. This is the “irrational third,” tao. Hence the sage’s anxious endeavour to live in harmony with tao, lest he fall into the conflict of opposites. Since tao is irrational, it is not something that can be got by the will, as Lao-tzu repeatedly emphasizes. This lends particular significance to another specifically Chinese concept, wu-wei. Wu-wei means “not-doing” (which is not to be confused with “doing nothing”). Our rationalistic “doing,” which is the greatness as well as the evil of our time, does not lead to tao.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“The picture thus presented is an altogether primitive idea which we find in similar forms elsewhere, as for instance in the West African myth where Obatala and Odudua, the first parents (heaven and earth), lie together in a calabash until a son, man, arises between them. Hence man as a microcosm uniting the world opposites is the equivalent of an irrational symbol that unites the psychological opposites. This primordial image of man is in keeping with Schiller’s definition of the symbol as “living form.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types

“According to the central concepts of Taoism, tao is divided into a fundamental pair of opposites, yang and yin. Yang signifies warmth, light, maleness; yin is cold, darkness, femaleness. Yang is also heaven, yin earth. From the yang force arises shen, the celestial portion of the human soul, and from the yin force comes kwei, the earthly part. As a microcosm, man is a reconciler of the opposites. Heaven, man, and earth form the three chief elements of the world, the san-tsai.”
― C.G. Jung, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types