Psychotherapist Quotes

“We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.”

“The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort.”

“What we lack is intensity of life.”

“Nature has no use for the plea that one 'did not know'.”

“A sense of a wider meaning to one's existence is what raises a man beyond mere getting and spending. If he lacks this sense, he is lost and miserable.”

“I have no theory about dreams. I do not know how dreams arise. On the other hand, I know that if we meditate on a dream sufficiently long and thoroughly – if we take the boat with us and turn it over and over – something almost always comes out of it.”

“Everything good is costly, and the development of personality is one of the most costly of all things. It is a matter of saying yes to oneself, of taking oneself as the most serious of tasks, of being conscious of everything one does, and keeping it constantly before one's eyes in all its dubious aspects.”

“The individual disposition is already a factor in childhood; it is innate, and not acquired in the course of a life.”

“But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea the very fiend himself— that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved— what then?”

“Nothing affects the life of a child so much as the unlived life of its parent”

“Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.”

“The longing for light is the longing for consciousness.”

“Most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us.”

“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”

“About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives.”

“The greatest potential for growth and self-realisation exists in the second half of life.”

“Medicines cure diseases, but only doctors can cure patients.”

“Modern man is sick because he is not whole.”

“Projection [of our own shadow] makes the whole world a replica of our own unknown face.”

“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.”

“The attainment of wholeness requires one to stake one's whole being. Nothing less will do; there can be no easier conditions, no substitutes, no compromises.”

“We discover ourselves through others.”

“If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely.”

“Science is not ... a perfect instrument, but it is a superb and invaluable tool that works harm only when taken as an end in itself.”

“The upheaval of our world and the upheaval of our consciousness are one and the same.”