As a man is, so he sees....
The young prince Siddhartha Gautama was sheltered by his father from all knowledge of suffering, for a prophecy had foretold he would become either a great king or a Buddha. Surrounded by a life of luxury and entertainment, he lived a life of pleasure until the age of 29, when he ventured outside the palace. There he encountered an old man, a sick person, a corpse, and finally a monk devoted to…
The value of a unit of currency is not the measure of the value of an object, but the measure of one's trust in other human beings. Debt, The First 5000 Years, pg.47
I certainly think that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, for fortune is a woman, and it is necessary, if you with to master her, to conquer her by force; and it can be seen that she lets herself be overcome by the bold rather than by those who proceed coldly. And therefore, like a woman, she is always a friend to the young, because they are less cautious, fiercer, and master her with…
“The impression was gaining ground with me that it was a good thing to let the money be my slave and not make myself a slave to money.”
Imagine that the keeper of a huge, strong beast notices what makes it angry, what it desires, how it has to be approached and handled, the circumstances and the conditions under which it becomes particularly fierce or calm, what provokes its typical cries, and what tones of voice make it gentle or wild. Once he's spent enough time in the creature's company to acquire all this information, he calls…
Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him. Plato, Phaedrus
Jung uses the phrase “objective psyche” to discuss the view that the unconscious is a realm of “objects” (complexes and archetypal images) as much as the surrounding world is a realm of persons and things. These inner objects impinge on consciousness in the same way that external objects do. They are not part of the ego, but they affect the ego, and the ego must relate and adapt to them. Thoughts,…
Jung has some thought-provoking reflections to offer on the question of how free the will actually is. As we will see in the chapters to come, the ego is only a small part of a much larger psychological world, like the earth is a small part of the solar system. Learning that the earth revolves around the sun is similar to becoming aware that the ego revolves around a greater psychic entity, the…
Everyone feels where he should approach or withdraw, or rather, something attracts or repels him, and so there is no need for investigation or explanation . We should not disturb this unconscious or only half-conscious process. As a rule, it facilitates social intercourse. In particular situations, however, physiognomic observation can be helpful—when you want to know what exactly is attracting or…
It seems certain that we do not feel comfortable in our present-day civilization, but it is very difficult to form an opinion whether and in what degree men of an earlier age felt happier and what part their cultural conditions played in the matter. We shall always tend to consider people's distress objectively—that is, to place ourselves, with our own wants and sensibilities, in their conditions,…