Carl Jung Quotes

Life is consciousness.

Consciousness is the foundation of all thinking; and thinking is the foundation of all consciousness.

The leading edge of reality is mind, and mind is the primary substratum of being.

Whatever we know without inference is mental.

It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve.

We can conceive a thinking being to have either many or few perceptions. Suppose the mind to be reduced even below the life of anoyster. Suppose it to have only one perception, as of thirst or hunger. Consider it in that situation. Do you conceive any thing but merely that perception? Have you any notion of self or substance? If not, the addition of other perceptions can never give you that notion.

Life is but thought.

Consciousness, rather than being something that we have, is something we participate in.

Without consciousness, space and time are nothing.

I--this thought which is called I--is the mould into which the world is poured like melted wax.

What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?

If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn't even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn't know he is dreaming. When you know you are dreaming, you are awake within the dream.

Is perception equivalent to existence?

If I use the word consciousness, in our lab, in our institute, what we mean is the special quality of mind, the special features that exist in the mind, that permit us to know, for example, that we, ourselves, exist, and that things exist around us.

To begin to understand the gorgeous fever that is consciousness, we must try to understand the senses and what they can tell us about the ravishing world we have the privilege to inhabit.

Consciousness ... is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known.

This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.

They do not think, therefore they are not.

Consciousness in the individual is that area where the totality of life is located.

All thought of something is at the same time self-consciousness [...] At the root of all our experiences and all our reflections, we find [...] a being which immediately recognises itself, [...] and which knows its own existence, not by observation and as a given fact, nor by inference from any idea of itself, but through direct contact with that existence. Self-consciousness is the very being of mind in action.

Life in the true sense is perceiving or thinking.

Where consciousness is concerned, the appearance is the reality.

The problem is we think we exist.

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.

Many people mistakenly suppose that the essence of consciousness is that of a control mechanism