Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed a bridge: on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.
Carl JungRead
Consciousness succumbs all too easily to unconscious influences, and these are often truer and wiser than our conscious thinking.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our unconscious mind can often have deeper insights than our conscious thoughts.
Carl Jung suggests that our conscious awareness can be easily swayed by subconscious influences, which might possess greater truth and wisdom than our logical reasoning. This highlights the importance of acknowledging and understanding our unconscious mind, as it may guide us to more profound insights and decisions that we may not consciously realize.
Themes
ConsciousnessUnconsciousWisdomInfluenceInsight
In practice
Example use cases
In a psychology class discussing the influence of the unconscious mind.
More from Carl Jung
All quotes βThe majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith.
Carl JungRead
Complexes are psychic contents which are outside the control of the conscious mind. They have been split off from consciousness and lead a separate existence in the unconscious, being at all times ready to hinder or to reinforce the conscious intentions.
Carl JungRead
We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.
Carl JungRead
From the viewpoint of analytic psychology, the theatre, aside from any aesthetic value, may be considered as an institution for the treatment of the mass complex.
Carl JungRead
I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.
Carl JungRead
Similar quotes
There are no souls in the world that are so fearful to judge others as those that do most judge themselves, nor so careful to make a righteous judgment of men or things as those that are most careful to judge themselves.
Thomas BrooksRead
Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to believe in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it.
C. S. LewisRead
We should be wary of politicians who profess to follow history while only noticing those signposts of history that point in the direction which they themselves already favour.
Douglas HurdRead
Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world.
Nhat HanhRead
The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide.
Dalai LamaRead
She supposed that houses, after all - like the lives that were lived in them - were mostly made of space. It was the spaces, in fact, which counted, rather than the bricks.
Sarah WatersRead