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Life is teleology par excellence; it is the intrinsic striving towards a goal, and the living organism is a system of directed aims which seek to fulfill themselves.
Carl Jung
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Life is about pursuing goals and fulfilling one's potential.

In this quote, Carl Jung emphasizes that life inherently involves a purposeful striving towards goals. He suggests that living organisms are driven by internal aims, which guide their development and actions, reflecting a deeper philosophical understanding of existence as a journey toward self-actualization and fulfillment.

Themes

LifeGoalsPurposeStrivingSelf-Fulfillment

In practice

Example use cases

This quote could inspire a personal development workshop.

More from Carl Jung

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.
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The majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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