Many / One

A database of 11,000+ illuminated guiding quotations in 40 categories from 600+ inspired books by our most brilliant and influential authors.
Compiled by JoAnn Kite

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Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Carl Jung (edited by Aniela Jaffe)

1 "Our souls as well as our bodies are composed of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors. The 'newness' in the individual psyche is an endlessly varied recombination of age-old components."

2 "In the end the only events in my life worth telling are those when the imperishable world irrupted into this transitory one."

3 "Attainment of consciousness is culture in the broadest sense, and self-knowledge is the heart and essence of this process. The Oriental attributes unquestionably divine significance to the self, and according to the ancient Christian view self-knowledge is the road to knowledge of God."

4 "In the products of the unconscious we discover mandala symbols, that is, circular and quaternary figures which express wholeness, and whenever we wish to express wholeness, we employ just such figures."

5 "In the living psychic structure, nothing takes place in a merely mechanical fashion; everything fits into the economy of the whole, relates to the whole. That is to say, it is all purposeful and has meaning."

6 "It would be a serious misunderstanding to regard as 'mere chance' the fact that Jesus, the carpenter's son, proclaimed the gospel and became the savior of the world. He must have been a person of singular gifts to have been able so completely to express and to represent the general, though unconscious, expectations of his age. No one else could have been the bearer of such a message; it was possible only for this particular man Jesus."

7 "There are many persons today who have the capacity for profounder insight into themselves. Such self-knowledge is of prime importance, because through it we approach that fundamenal stratum or core of human nature where the instincts dwell. Here are those pre-existent dynamic factors which ultimately govern the ethical decisions of our consciousness."

8 "We are in the deepest sense the victims and the instruments of cosmogonic 'love.' I put the word in quotation marks to indicate that I do not use it in its connotations of desiring, preferring, favoring, wishing, and similar feelings, but as something superior to the individual, a unified and undivided whole."

9 "As early as the period of primitive Christianity, the idea of the incarnation had been refined to include the intuition of 'Christ within us.' Thus the unconscious wholeness penetrated into the psychic realm of inner experience, and man was made aware of all that entered into his true configuration."

10 "Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is: 'Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind's eternal recreation.' And that is the self, the wholeness of the personality."

11 "It is a fact that symbols, by their very nature, can so unite the opposites that these no longer diverge or clash, but mutually supplement one another and give meaningful shape to life."

12 "The mandala is an archetypal image whose occurrence is attested throughout the ages. It signifies the wholeness of the self. This circular image represents the wholeness of the psychic ground."

13 "The life of the psyche requires no space and no time."

14 "When I began drawing mandalas, I saw that everything, all the paths I had been following, all the steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point – namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation."

15 "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."

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite