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In every adult there lurks a child— an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the personality which wants to develop and become whole.
Carl Jung
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that within every adult lies an innate child-like spirit that requires ongoing nurturing for personal growth.

Carl Jung emphasizes that adulthood does not equate to completion of oneself; instead, there exists a perpetual child within each adult that is in a continuous state of development. This 'eternal child' represents our potential for growth, creativity, and innocence, requiring constant care, attention, and education to thrive and help individuals become their true selves.

Themes

GrowthChildDevelopmentCreativityEducation

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech to emphasize the importance of lifelong learning.

More from Carl Jung

Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed a bridge: on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.
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The majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith.
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Complexes are psychic contents which are outside the control of the conscious mind. They have been split off from consciousness and lead a separate existence in the unconscious, being at all times ready to hinder or to reinforce the conscious intentions.
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We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.
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From the viewpoint of analytic psychology, the theatre, aside from any aesthetic value, may be considered as an institution for the treatment of the mass complex.
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I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.
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