25 Carl Gustav Jung quotes to understand yourself

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, the founder of the analytical approach. It was he who divided us all into “introverts” and “extroverts”. He also introduced the concepts of the archetype and the collective unconscious.

Jung’s theory is distinctive and often difficult to understand. But sometimes a couple of phrases are enough to hear what you need right now. That is why we have collected the most important thoughts of the father of analytical psychology in the format of quotations and small excerpts.

We suggest starting with a brief biography of Carl Gustav Jung. After all, a person’s words and thoughts become clearer if we know how he came to them.

Daftar Isi

Strokes from the biography

Carl Gustav Jung was born in the city of Keswil (Switzerland) in 1875. From childhood he was self-absorbed and pursued knowledge. He loved to be alone, to ponder and dream. Nowadays (with a slight hand of Jung himself) about such a child would say – a clear introvert.

The boy read a lot, mainly interested in philosophy and religion. After finishing school, he went to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Basel. After graduating in 1900 (specializing in psychiatry), Jung began working as an assistant at the Zurich Hospital for the Insane.

Carl Gustav Jung

The young psychiatrist was impressed by the works of Sigmund Freud and soon began corresponding with him. In 1907 their personal meeting took place. This was the beginning of friendship and cooperation.

Carl Gustav Jung became Freud’s successor. In 1910 he was elected president of the International Psychoanalytic Association. But, alas, the collaboration soon came to an end. Between Jung and Freud began to disagree, which led to a breakup. It happened in 1913.

The time afterward was a difficult period in Jung’s life. For four years he suffered from a mental crisis. Because of his illness, he even refused to lecture at the University of Zurich. Only by the end of World War I Jung was able to emerge from the crisis and began to formulate his own approach to the study of personality.

Jung’s ideas and theory

Carl Gustav Jung studied the influence of dynamic unconscious drives on human behavior. The essence of the theory is that people in their actions are guided by intropsychic forces and images.

This is the same collective unconscious that goes back into the depths of history and has spiritual material in it. It explains why man strives for self-expression and physical perfection.

Personality, according to his ideas, consists of three parts.

Ego – all that forms us: thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations.
Thepersonal unconscious – repressed traumatic memories. They come not only from one’s own, but also from ancestral (hereditary) experience.
Thecollective unconscious is the deepest layer, containing the entire spiritual heritage of mankind. It consists of archetypes, which are the reason for the special perception and reactions of an individual.

Yes, it was Jung who introduced the concepts of “collective unconscious” and “archetypes”. He also invented the theory of introversion and extroversion. According to Jung, it explains human attitudes.

In simple terms, the extrovert is directed to the outside world, and the introvert – on the inside. Usually they coexist, but one trait becomes the leading one. Human behavior is essentially a combination of introversion and extroversion.

The goal of our life according to Jung is the full realization of the self. This process he called “individuation.” A person must find the true self by eliminating inner contradictions in order to release energy for self-improvement. Alas, this is not available to many people. That’s what Jung himself believed. The main obstacles on this path, he considered the lack of knowledge and free time.

To better understand Jung’s ideas, and also to replenish your knowledge and save time, catch a selection of his short statements.

Jung quotes about everything

Your eye will become clear only when you can look into your own soul.

Everything that annoys us in others can lead to an understanding of ourselves.

He who looks outward sees only dreams, he who looks within himself awakens.

We may think we are in complete control of ourselves. However, a friend can easily tell us things about us that we have no idea about.

The heaviest burden that falls on a child’s shoulders is the unlived life of his or her parents.

Don’t hold back the one who leaves you. Otherwise the one who comes to you will not come to you.

Asking the right question is half the solution to the problem.

We can’t change anything until we accept it. Condemnation is not liberating, it is oppressive.

The privilege of life is to become who you really are.

You are what you do, not what you say you are going to do.

Loneliness is not caused by the lack of people around you, but by your inability to talk to people about what seems essential to you, or the unacceptability of your views to others.

It all depends on how you look at things, not on what they are in themselves.

Fanaticism is an overcompensation for doubt.

Depression is like the lady in black. If she comes, don’t chase her away, but invite her to the table as a guest and listen to what she intends to say.

What you resist persists.

I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.

If we don’t realize what is happening inside of us, it seems to us from the outside that it is fate.

Woe to those who live by examples! There is no life in them. If you live according to examples, you are living the life of that example, but who will live your life but yourself? So live it yourself.