248 Quotes by James Hillman

It’s important to ask yourself, How am I useful to others? What do people want from me? That may very well reveal what you are here for.

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

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

Pathology is not a problem to be solved, but the soul’s way of working on itself.

Art, for example, becomes “art therapy.” When patients make music, it becomes “music therapy.” When the arts are used for “therapy” in this way, they are degraded to a secondary position.

The willful amnesia afflicting the sciences in general contrasts sharply with the importance given to memory by the humanities. Literature, philosophy, politics, and the visual arts, including photography and filmmaking, feed on memory. Practitioners of the humanities need memory to deepen and refine their thinking.

I think there is such a thing as a bad seed that comes to flower in certain people. The danger with that theory is that we begin to look for those “troublemakers” early on and try to weed them out. That’s very dangerous, because it could work against kids who are just routine troublemakers.

I’ve found that contemporary psychology enrages me with its simplistic ideas of human life, and also its emptiness.

Calling can refer not only to ways of doing – meaning work – but also to ways of being.