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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We often understand animal and primitive instincts better than our own because we are conditioned to rationalize our actions.
Carl Jung's quote highlights the paradox of self-awareness; while we strive to comprehend our motivations through rational analysis, this habit can obscure our instinctual nature. In contrast, we can more easily observe and understand the instinctual behaviors of animals and primitive people since they operate largely on instinct without the overthinking that complicates human behavior.
Themes
InstinctsSelf-AwarenessBehaviorRationalityObservation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a psychology lecture to illustrate human behavior.
More from Carl Jung
All quotes →The 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
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
Part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to laws of space and time.
Carl JungRead
Similar quotes
To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.
George OrwellRead
Here's a thought: what if we ban the word 'healthy food' from our culinary vocabulary? I'm not talking about banning foods that are considered healthy. I'm talking about changing the way we think about food overall.
Marcus SamuelssonRead
There are two kinds of beauty; there is a beauty which God gives at birth, and which withers as a flower. And there is a beauty which God grants when by His grace men are born again. That kind of beauty never vanishes but blooms eternally.
Abraham KuyperRead
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
SocratesRead
Possibility, infinity, beauty -- none of those words were right. [...] What he really wanted to say was: have you felt this? this phantom life streaking like a phosphorescent hound at the edges of your ruin?
Haven KimmelRead
A new understanding of power is replacing our old understanding of power as the ability to manipulate and control. The old understanding of power has become counterproductive to our evolution. What used to be good medicine has become poisonous. Pursuit of the ability to manipulate and control now produces only violence and destruction.
Gary ZukavRead