Shadow Quotes

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. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge, and it therefore, as a rule, meets with considerable resistance. Indeed, self-knowledge as a psychotherapuetic measure frequently requires much painstaking work extending over a long period of time.

Shadow work is the path of the heart warrior.

We carry our past with us, to wit, the primitive and inferior man with his desires and emotions, and it is only with an enormous effort that we can detach ourselves from this burden. If it comes to a neurosis, we invariably have to deal with a considerably intensified shadow.

Perhaps, I myself am the enemy who needs to be loved.

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.

The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,Making fantastic arabesques,The shadows raced across the blind.

A luminous body will appear more brilliant in proportion as it is surrounded by deeper shadow.

I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole.

To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real.

There is no light without shadow, and no psychic wholeness without imperfection.

Shadows which you see with difficulty, and whose boundaries you cannot define... these you should not represent as finished or sharply defined, for the result would be that your work would seem wooden.

Knowing the bright, but clinging to the dark, you become a model to the world.

You see but your shadow when you turn your back to the sun.

We are convinced that certain people have all the bad qualities we do not know in ourselves.

I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world… And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.

Where the light is brightest, the shadows are deepest.

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?

Unfortunately, there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and darker it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it

Shadow is the obstruction of light. Shadows appear to me to be of supreme importance in perspective, because, without them opaque and solid bodies will be ill defined; that which is contained within their outlines and their boundaries themselves will be ill-understood unless they are shown against a background of a different tone from themselves.

The bright dawn flooded the room, and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering.

Wo die Liebe herrscht, da gibt es keinen machtwillen, und wo die macht den vorrang hat, da fehlt die Liebe. Das eine ist der Schatten des andern.Translation: Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.

Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.

To confront a person with their own shadow is to show them their own light.

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

To any white body receiving the light from the sun, or the air, the shadows will be of a bluish cast.

If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.

How can anyone see straight when he does not see himself and the darkness he unconsciously carries with him into all his dealings?

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them. They then dwell in the house next door, and at any moment a flame may dart out and set fire to his own house. Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force.

I am no longer alone with myself, and I can only artificially recall the scary and beautiful feeling of solitude. This is the shadow side of the fortune of love.

How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole

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.

There is strong shadow where there is much light.

Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force

Where there is much light, the shadows are deepest.[Ger., Wo viel Licht is, ist starker Schatten.]

The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.

Very great charm of shadow and light is to be found in the faces of those who sit in the doors of dark houses. The eye of the spectator sees that part of the face which is in shadow lost in the darkness of the house, and that part of the face which is lit draws its brilliancy from the splendour of the sky. From this intensification of light and shade the face gains greatly in relief and beauty by showing the subtlest shadows in the light part and the subtlest lights in the dark part.