James Hillman Quotes - Page 6

We are human less by virtue of our ideal goals than by the vice of our inferiority.

By setting up a universe which tends to hold everything we do, see, and say in the sway of its cosmos, an archetype is best comparable with a God

Writing books for me is anyway much like a military campaign. I confess to fighting my way through with military metaphors. There is a strategy, an overall concept, and there are tactics along the way…Tradition would say I was a 'child of Mars.'

Whether we like it or not, men have more of the offices, more of the higher jobs, more of the seats in Congress. Men need to re-examine what their power is. We need to understand how to use it.

The word power has such a generally negative implication in our society. What are people talking about? Are they talking about muscles, or control?

Well, if I'm only a result of past causes, then I'm a victim of those past causes. There is no deeper meaning behind things that gives me a reason to be here.

Fear is a huge thing for older people.

I'm cautious about a lot of words

It's not enough just to be a mother. It's not only the social pressure on mothers by certain kinds of feminism and other sources. There is also economic pressure on them.

I don't think you can revive traditions on purpose.

In the cosmology that's behind psychology, there is no reason for anyone to be here or do anything.

Teachers today can't take to a child.

Many of our troubles are chronic. Life is chronic.

When they talk about family values, it's in a repressive way, as if our American tradition were only the Puritan tradition or the 19th century oppressive tradition. The Christian tradition.

I know my own deficiencies, one of which is that I had lived away from America for such a long time. It's called expatriate

The idea of death robs inquiry of its passionate vitality and empties our efforts of their purpose by coming to one predestined conclusion, death. Why inquire if you already know the answer?

Yes, we worship the idea of the "self-made man" - otherwise we'd go on strike against Bill Gates having all that money! We worship that idea.

The whole culture is under terrible pressure and fraught with worry. It's hard to get out of that box. That's the dominant situation all over the world.

You don't attack the grunts of Vietnam; you blame the theory behind the war. Nobody who fought in that war was at fault. It was the war itself that was at fault.

What I try to point out is the role an ordinary person can have in seeing the child's destiny. You have to have a feeling for the child.

As the popular trust in science fades - and many sociologists say that's happening today - people will develop a distrust of purely "scientific" psychology. Researchers in the universities haven't picked up on this; they're more interested in genetics and computer models of thinking than ever. But, in general, there is a huge distrust of the scientific establishment now.

It's the only way we can get out of being so human-centered: to remain attached to something other than humans.

I'm the result of upbringing, class, race, gender, social prejudices, and economics. So I'm a victim again. A result.

It's very important for men to look downward, to the next generation

We have to give value to authority. We have to give value to office, being in office, holding office.