Quotes from

Jung, C. G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections (revised edition). Edited by Aniela Jaffé, translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winstor. Vintage Books, 1989. 

Random House copyright 1961

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Nature as comfort: 

What had led me astray during the crisis was my passion for being alone, my delight in solitude. Nature seemed to me Full of wonders, and I wanted to steep myself in them. Every stone, every plant, every single thing seemed alive and indescribably marvelous. I immersed myself in nature, crawled, as it were, into the very essence of nature and away from the whole human world. (32)

Spirit & Nature:

"Spirit," of course, meant for me something ineffable, but at bottom I did not regard it as essentially different from very rarefied air. What the roots absorbed and transmitted to the copper trunk was a kind of spiritual essence which became visible down in the cellar as finished gold coins. This was certainly no mere conjuring trick, but a venerable and vitally important secret of nature (82)

Plants: 

Plants interested me too, but not in a scientific sense. I was attracted to them for a reason I could not understand, and with a strong feeling that they ought not to be pulled up and dried. They were living beings which had meaning only so long as they were growing and flowering a hidden, secret meaning, one of God's thoughts. (83)

Incests: 

insects were denatured plants flowers and fruits which had presumed to crawl about on legs or stilts and to fly around with wings like the petals of blossoms, and busied themselves preying on plants. (83)

Dislike mathematics: 

But the thing that exasperated me most of all was the proposition: If a = b and b = c, then a = c, even though by definition a meant something other than b, and, being different, could therefore not be equated with b, let alone with c. Whenever It was a question of an equivalence, then it was said that a = a, b = b, and so on.

This I could accept, whereas a = b seemed to me a downright lie or a fraud. I was equally outraged when the teacher stated in the teeth of his own definition of parallel lines that they met at infinity. This seemed to me no better than a stupid trick to catch peasants with, and I could not and would not have anything to do with it. My intellectual morality fought against these whimsical inconsistencies, which have forever debarred me from understanding mathematics. Right into old age I have had the incorrigible feeling that if, like my schoolmates, I could have accepted without a struggle the proposition that a = b, or that sun = moon, dog = cat, then mathematics might have fooled me endlessly--just how much I only began to realize at the age of eighty-four. All my life it remained a puzzle to me why it was that I never managed to get my bearings in mathematics when there was no doubt whatever that I could calculate properly. Least of all did I understand my own moral doubts concerning mathematics. (28)

Inferiority, otherness: 

On the way to the house to which I was invited I felt important and dignified, as I always did when I wore my Sunday clothes on a weekday. The picture changed radically, however, as soon as I came in sight of the house I was visiting. Then a sense of the grandeur and power of those people overcame me. I was afraid of them, and in my smallness wished I might sink fathoms deep into the ground. That was how I felt when I rang the bell. The tinkling sound from inside rang like the toll of doom in my ears. I felt as timid and craven as a stray dog. It was ever so much worse when my mother had prepared me properly beforehand. Then the bell would ring in my ears: "My shoes are filthy, and so are my hands; I have no handkerchief and my neck is black with dirt." Out of defiance I would not convey my parents' regards, or I would act with unnecessary shyness and stubbornness. If things became too bad I would think of my secret treasure in the attic, and that helped me regain my poise. For in my forlorn state I remembered that I was also the ''Other." the person who possessed that inviolable secret, the black stone and the little man in frock coat and top hat. (26)

Splitting personality:

In the sciences I was drawn principally to zoology, paleontology, and geology; in the humanities to Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and prehistoric archaeology. At that time, of course, I did not realize how very much this choice of the most varied subjects corresponded to the nature of my inner dichotomy. (72)

No. 1 wanted to free himself from the pressure or melancholy of No. 2. It was not No. 2 who was depressed, but No. 1 when he remembered No. 2. (80)

My stone, posthumanist subjectivity:

In front of this wall was a slope in which was embedded a stone that jutted out--my stone. Often, when I was alone, I sat down on this stone, and then began an imaginary game that went something like this: "I am sitting on top of this stone and it is underneath." But the stone also could say "I" and think: "I am lying here on this slope and he is sitting on top of me! The question then arose: "Am I the one who is sitting on the stone, or am I the stone on which he is sitting?" This question always perplexed me, and I would stand up, wondering who was what now. The answer remained totally unclear, and my uncertainty was accompanied by a feeling of curious and fascinating darkness. But there was no doubt whatsoever that this stone stood in some secret relationship to me. I could sit on it for hours, fascinated by the puzzle it set me. (20)

Stone as Breath of life:

It called the figure Atmavictu--the

"breath of life." It was a further development of that fearful tree of my childhood dream, which was now revealed as the "Breath of life," the creative impulse. Ultimately, the manikin was a kabir, wrapped in his little cloak, hidden in the kista, and provided with a supply of life-force, the oblong black stone. (23)

Whenever I thought that I was the stone, the conflict ceased. "The stone has no uncertainties, no urge to communicate, and Is eternally the same for thousands of years, I would think. while I am only a passing phenomenon which bursts into all kinds of emotions, like a fame that flares up quickly and then goes out." I was but the sum of my emotions, and the Other in me was the timeless, imperishable stone. (42)

Dislike competition:

I observed that below me were schoolmates who envied me and tried at every opportunity to catch up with me. That spoiled my pleasure. I hated all competition, and if someone played a game too competitively I turned my back on the game. Thereafter I remained second in the class, and found this considerably more enjoyable. (43)

Guilty conscience:

Although I had not in reality done what I was accused of, I felt that I might have done it. I would even draw up a list of alibis in case I should be accused of something. I felt positively re-Teved when I had actually done something wrong. Then at Teast I knew what my guilty conscience was for. (44)

God is closer to nature than humans:

Nothing could persuade me that "in the image of God" applied only to man. In fact it seemed to me that the high mountains, the rivers, lakes, trees, flowers, and animals far better exemplified the essence of God than men with their ridiculous clothes, their meanness, vanity, mendacity, and abhorrent egotism--all qualities with which I was only too familiar from myself, that is, from personality No. 1, the schoolboy of 18go. (45)

Contradiction of Christianity:

All the people about me seemed to take the jargon for granted, and the dense obscurity that emanated from it; thoughtlessly they swallowed all the contradictions, such as that God is omniscient and therefore foresaw all human history, and that he actually created human beings so that they would have to sin, and nevertheless forbids them to sin and even punishes them by eternal damnation in hell-fire. (46)

Disbelief in God:

For God's sake I now found myself cut off from the Church and from my father's and everybody else's faith. Insofar as they all represented the Christian religion, I was an outsider. This knowledge filled me with a sadness which was to overshadow all the years until the time I entered the university. (56)

Reasoning vs blind belief of God:

The "wonderful harmonies" of natural law looked to me more like a chaos tamed by fearful effort. and the "eternal" starry firmament with its predetermined orbits seemed plainly an accumulation of random bodies without order or meaning. For no one could really see the constellations people spoke about. They were mere arbitrary configurations. I either did not see or gravely doubted that God filled the natural world with His goodness. This, apparently, was another of those points which must not be reasoned about but must be believed. In fact, if God is the highest good, why is the world, His creation, so imperfect, so corrupt, so pitiable? "Obviously it has been infected and thrown into confusion by the devil," I thought. But the devil, too, was a creature of God. I had to read up on the devil. He seemed to be highly important after all. I again opened Biedermann's book on Christian dogmatics and looked for the answer to this burning question. What were the reasons for suffering, imperfection, and evil? I could find nothing. (59)

That finished it for me. This weighty tome on dogmatics was nothing but fancy drivel, worse still, it was a fraud or a specimen of uncommon stupidity whose sole aim was to obscure the truth. I was disillusioned and even indignant, and once more seized with pity for my father, who had fallen victim to this mumbo-jumbo. (59)

Humans & animals:

People were like the animals, and seemed as uncon-sclous as they. They looked down upon the ground or up into the trees in order to see what could be put to use, and for what purpose; like animals they herded, paired, and fought, but did not see that they dwelt in a unified cosmos, in God's world, in an eternity where everything is already born and everything has already died. Because they are so closely akin to us and share our unknow-ingness, I loved all warm-blooded animals who have souls like ourselves and with whom, so I thought, we have an instinctive understanding. We experience joy and sorrow, love and hate, hunger and thirst, fear and trust in common--all the essential features of existence with the exception of speech, sharpened consciousness, and science. And although I admired science in the conventional way, I also saw it giving rise to alienation and aberration from God's world, as leading to a degeneration which animals were not capable of. Animals were dear and faithful, unchanging and trustworthy. People I now distrusted more than ever. (67)

My "sympathy with all creatures" was strictly limited to warm-blooded ani-mals. The only exceptions among the cold-blooded vertebrates were frogs and toads, because of their resemblance to human Beings. (83) 

My compassion for animals did not derive from the Buddhistic trimmings of Schopenhauer's philosophy, but rested on the deeper foundation of a primitive attitude of mind- on an unconscious identity with animals. (101)

Jung & Psychiatry:

Beginning with the preface, I read: "It is probably due to the peculiarity of the subject and its incomplete state of development that psychiatric textbooks are stamped with a more or less subjective character." A few lines further on, the author called the psychoses "diseases of the personality." My heart suddenly began to pound. I had to stand up and draw a deep breath. My excitement was intense, for it had become clear to me, in a flash of illumination, that for me the only possible goal was psychiatry. Here alone the two currents of my interest could flow together and in a united stream dig their own bed.

Here was the empirical field common to biological and spiritual facts, which I had everywhere sought and nowhere found. Here at last was the place where the collision of nature and spirit became a reality. (108-9)

"What actually takes place inside the mentally ill?" That was something which I did not understand then, nor had any of my colleagues concerned themselves with such problems. Psychiatry teachers were not interested in what the patient had to say, but rather in how to make a diagnosis or how to describe symptoms and to compile statistics. From the clinical point of view which then prevailed, the human personality of the patient, his individuality, did not matter at all. Rather, the doctor was confronted with Patient X, with a long list of cut-and-dried diagnoses and a detailing of symptoms. Patients were labeled, rubber-stamped with a diagnosis, and, for the most part, that settled the matter. The psychology of the mental patient played no role whatsoever.

At this point Freud became vitally important to me, especially because of his fundamental researches into the psychology of hysteria and of dreams. For me his ideas pointed the way to a closer investigation and understanding of individual cases. Freud introduced psychology into psychiatry, although he himself was a neurologist. (114)

In many cases in psychiatry, the patient who comes to us has a story that is not told, and which as a rule no one knows of. To my mind, therapy only really begins after the investigation of that wholly personal story. It is the patient's secret, the rock against which he is shattered. If I know his secret story, I have a key to the treatment. The doctor's task is to find out how to gain that knowledge. In most cases exploration of the conscious material is insufficient. Sometimes an association test can open the way; so can the interpretation of dreams, or long and patient human contact with the individual. In therapy the problem is always the whole person, never the symptom alone. We must ask questions which challenge the whole personality. (117)

Through my work with the patients I realized that paranoid ideas and hallucinations contain a germ of meaning. A person-ality, a life history, a pattern of hopes and desires lie behind the psychosis. The fault is ours if we do not understand them. It dawned upon me then for the first time that a general psychology of the personality lies concealed within psychosis, and that even here we come upon the old human conflicts. Although patients may appear dull and apathetic, or totally imbecilic, there is more going on in their minds, and more that is meaning-ful, than there seems to be. At bottom we discover nothing new and unknown in the mentally ill; rather, we encounter the substratum of our own natures. (127)

More than just methods: 

Naturally, a doctor must be familiar with the so-called "meth-ods." But he must guard against falling into any specific, routine approach. In general one must guard against theoretical assump-approarodav shev may be valid, tomorrow it may be the turn of other assumptions. In my analyses they play no part. I am unsystematic very much by intention. To my mind, in dealing with individuals, only individual understanding will do. We need a different language for every patient. (131)

Since the essence of psychotherapy is not the application of a. method, psychiatric study alone does not suffice. I myself had to work for a very long time before I possessed the equipment for psychotherapy. As early as 1909 I realized that I could not treat latent psychoses if I did not understand their symbolism. It was then that I began to study mythology. With cultivated and intelligent patents the psychiatrist needs more than merely professional knowledge. He must understand, aside from all theoretical assumptions, what really motivates the patient. (131)

Incest:

As a result of the incest to which she had been subjected as a girl, she felt humiliated in the eyes of the world, but elevated in the realm of fantasy. She had been transported into a mythic realm; for incest is traditionally a prerogative of royalty and divinities. The consequence was complete alienation from the world, a state of psychosis. She became "extramundane, as it were, and lost contact with humanity. She plunged into cosmic distances, into outer space, where she met with the winged de-mon. (130)

Ethics:

The psyche is distinctly more complicated and inaccessible than the body. It is, so to speak, the half of the world which comes into existence only when we become conscious of it. For. that reason the psyche is not only a personal but a world prob-Tem, and the psychiatrist has to deal with an entire world. (132)

The psychotherapist, however, must understand not only the patient; it is equally important that he should understand himself. (132)

Only if the doctor knows how to cope with himself and his own problems will he be able to teach the patient to do the same. (132)

Female Analyst: 

Every therapist ought to have a control by some third person, so that he remains open to another point of view. Even the pope has a confessor. I always advise analysts: "Have a father confessor, or a mother confessor| Women are particularly gifted for playing such a part. They often have excellent intui, ton and a trenchant critical insight, and can see what men, have up their sleeves, at times see also into men's anima intrigues. They see aspects that the man does not see. That is why no woman has ever been convinced that her husband is a superman! (134)

Spiritual development & neurotic: 

people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success or money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when They have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon. Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning. If they are enabled to develop into more spacious personalities, the neurosis. generally disappears. For that reason the idea of development was always of the highest importance to me. (140)

Psychotherapy: doctor & patient

For psychotherapy to be effective a close rapport is needed, so close that the doctor cannot shut his eyes to the heights and depths of human suffer-ing. The rapport consists, after all, in a constant comparison and mutual comprehension, in the dialectical confrontation of two opposing psychic realities. (143)

on a conservative estimate, a third of my cases were really cured, a third. considerably improved, and a third not essentially influenced. But it is precisely the unimproved cases which are hardest to judge, because many things are not realized and understood by the patients until years afterward, and only then can they take effect. How often former patients have written to me: I did not realize what it was really all about until ten years after I had been with you" (143)

Experiment with Unconscious:

But since I did, not know what was going on, I had no choice but to write everything down in the style selected by the unconscious itself., Sometimes it was as if I were hearing it with my ears, sometimes feeling it with my mouth, as if my tongue were formulating. words; now and then I heard myself whispering aloud. (178)

One of the greatest difficulties for me lay in dealing with my negative feelings. I was voluntarily submitting myself to emotions of which I could not really approve, and I was writing down fantasies which often struck me as nonsense, and toward which I had strong resistances. For as long as we do not understand their meaning, such fantasies are a diabolical mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous. (178) 

The reality of the psyche:

there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. 

The appearance of the superior insight or fantasy called “Philemon” - thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added, "If you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them. (183) 

Snake symbolism in myth: 

In myths the snake is a frequent counterpart of the hero. There are numerous accounts of their affinity. For example, the hero has eyes like a snake, or after his death he is changed into a snake and revered as such, or the snake is his mother, etc. In my fantasy, therefore, the presence of the snake was an indication of a hero-myth. (182)

Anima & animus:

why the name "anima" was given to the soul. Why was it thought of as feminine" Later I came to see that this inner feminine figure plays a typical, or archetypal, role in the unconscious of a man, and I called her the "anima." The corresponding figure in the unconscious of woman I called the animus. (186)

the insinuations of the anima, the mouthpiece of the unconscious, can utterly destroy a man. In the final analysis the decisive factor is always conscious-ness. which can understand the manifestations of the unconsciousness, which is conscious and take up a position toward them. (187)

Nietzsche vs. Jung:

I have a medical diploma from a Swiss university, I must help my patients, I have a wife and five children, I live at 228 Seestrasse in Küsnacht--these were actualities which made demands upon me and proved to me again and again that I really existed, that I was not a blank page whirling about in the winds of the spirit, like Nietzsche. Nietzsche had lost the ground under his feet because he possessed nothing more than the inner world of his thoughts-which incidentally possessed him more than he it. He was uprooted and hovered above the earth, and therefore he succumbed to exaggeration and irreality. For me, such irreality was the quintessence of horror, for I aimed, after all, at this world and this life. No matter how deeply absorbed or how blown about I was, I always knew that everything I was experiencing was ultimately directed at this real life of mine. I meant to meet its obligations and fulfill its meanings. My watchword was: Hic 'Rhodus, hic salta! (189)

Mandala & the self:

My mandalas were cryptograms concerning the state of the self which were presented to me anew each day. In them I saw The self--that is, my whole being actively at work. (196)

I had the distinct feeling that they were something central, and in time I acquired through them a living conception of the self. The self, I thought, was like the monad which I am, and which is my world.

The mandala represents this monad, and corresponds to the microcosmic nature of the psyche. (196) 

Unconscious and Africa:

unconsciousness, it sketches a more complete picture of the selt, of the whole man in his pure in-dividuality, than adulthood. Consequently, the sight of a child or a primitive will arouse certain longings in adult, civilized persons longings which relate to the unfulflled desires and needs of those parts of the personality which have been blotted Out of the total picture in favor of the adapted persona.

In traveling to Africa to find a psychic observation post out side the sphere of the European, I unconsciously wanted to find that part of my personality which had become invisible under the influence and the pressure of being European. (244)

awaken an archetypal memory of an only too well known prehistoric past which apparently we have entirely forgotten. (246) 

Primitive & modern society, masculine/feminine:

Among my Elgonyis, the men busied themselves with the cat-the and with hunting; the women were identified with the shamba, a feld of bananas, sweet potatoes, kaffr (grain sor-ghum), and maize. They kept children, goats, and chickens in the same round hut in which the family lived. Their dignity and naturalness flow from their function in the economy; they are intensely active business partmers. The concept of equal rights for women is the product of an age in which such partnership has lost its meaning. Primitive society is regulated by an unconscious egoism and altruism; both attitudes are wisely given their due. This unconscious order breaks up at once it any disturbance ensues which has to be remedied by a conscious act. (263)

I asked myself whether the growing masculinization of the white woman is not connected with the loss of her natural wholeness ness (shamba, children, livestock, house of her own, hearth fire): whether it is not a compensation for her impoverishment; and whether the feminizing of the white man is not a further consequence. The more rational the polity, the more blurred is.

The difference between the sexes. The role homosexuality plays in modern society is enormous. It is partly the consequence of the mother-complex, partly a purposive phenomenon ( prevertion of reproduction). (263-4)

The whites:

"See," Ochwiay Biano said, "how cruel the whites look. Their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and distorted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression; they are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites. always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad.

I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.

"They say that they think with their heads," he replied.

"Why of course. What do you think with?" I asked him in surprise.

"We think here," he said, indicating his heart.

I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man. It was as though until now I had seen nothing but sentimental, prettified color prints. This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind. (248)