Paulo Coelho

Stories & Reflections

Character of the week: Carl Jung

Author: Paulo Coelho

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off. If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people. Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

Carl Gustav Jung (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist

Subscribe to Blog

Join 16.4K other subscribers

Stories & Reflections

Social

Paulo Coelho Foundation

Gifts, keepsakes and other souvenirs

Souvenirs