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
Language, in its origin and essence, is simply a system of signs or symbols that denote real occurrences or their echo in the human soul.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Language is fundamentally a collection of symbols that represent real events or reflections within us.
Carl Jung's quote emphasizes the idea that language is not merely a tool for communication but rather a profound system of symbols that captures and conveys the essence of our experiences and emotions. It highlights the connection between words and the realities they represent, as well as their ability to resonate with our inner feelings and consciousness.
Themes
LanguageSymbolsCommunicationRealityHuman Experience
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on the importance of communication, one might quote Jung to emphasize the depth of language.
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
The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone for a season, that it may exalt its conversation or society.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
There we were - demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man ever spoke, swearing love in wigs and rhymed couplets, killing each other with wooden swords, hollow protestations of faith hurled after empty promises of vengeance - and every gesture, every pose, vanishing into the thin unpopulated air. We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened. Don't you see?! We're actors - we're the opposite of people!
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Oh, something is there, waiting for me. Perhaps someday the revelation will burst in upon me and I will see the other side of this monumental grotesque joke. And then I'll laugh. And then I'll know what life is.
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Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person also extends to the rest of creation, which is called to join man in praising God.
Pope John Paul IiRead
What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.
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Death is beautiful. It alone gives love its true habitat.
Jean AnouilhRead