James Hillman quotes - page 3

We carve out risk-free lives where nothing happens. (James Hillman)
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. View quote
James Hillman
I'm in favor of destruction, aggression, hating things. Not bearing things anymore. We think the breakdown comes because our life is in bad shape. But maybe the ideas cause the disorder. Something tries to break through and causes the disorder. View quote
James Hillman
The older people that one admires seem to be fearless. They go right out into the world. It's astounding. Maybe they can't see or they can't hear, but they walk out into the street and take life as it comes. They're models of courage, in a strange way. View quote
James Hillman
I can't read all the books I want to read, I can't watch all the phenomena that interest me in the world. The work calls me, and sometimes I wonder whether this is an obsession and I should drop it, or it's a necessity I'm obliged to fulfill. View quote
James Hillman
In the history of the treatment of depression, there was the dunking stool, purging of the bowels of black bile, hoses, attempts to shock the patient. All of these represent hatred or aggression towards what depression represents in the patient. View quote
James Hillman
Futurism is another American myth: whether Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan or Obama, American presidents all come into office with a new program, and the conviction that the country is going to be better than ever. View quote
James Hillman
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. View quote
James Hillman
We have to give value to authority. We have to give value to office, being in office, holding office. View quote
James Hillman
The moment the angel enters a life it enters an environment. We are ecological from day one. View quote
James Hillman
Remember that in the early days of the feminist movement, they refused to have a leader; different women would just stand up and speak. The early feminists were very careful to not put what was spontaneously arising back in the old bottle. (James Hillman)
We need to have an educational system that's able to embrace all sorts of minds, and where a student doesn't have to fit into a certain mold of learning. View quote
James Hillman
I don't have answers. I have questions. View quote
James Hillman
To see the angel in the malady requires an eye for the invisible, a certain blinding of one eye and an opening of the other to elsewhere. View quote
James Hillman
Until the culture recognizes the legitimacy of growing down, each person in the culture struggles blindly to make sense of the darkness that the soul requires to deepen into life. View quote
James Hillman
Each of us needs an adequate biography: How do I put together into a coherent image the pieces of my life? How do I find the basic plot of my story? View quote
James Hillman
Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don't want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure. View quote
James Hillman
The easy path of aging is to become a thick-skinned, unbudging curmudgeon, a battle-ax. To grow soft and sweet is the harder way. View quote
James Hillman
Our life is psychological, and the purpose of life is to make psyche of it, to find connections between life and soul. View quote
James Hillman
Words, like angels, are powers which have invisible power over us. View quote
James Hillman
We cannot be studied or cured apart from the planet. (James Hillman)
Beauty is something everybody longs for, needs, and tries to obtain in some way - whether through nature, or a man or a woman, or music, or whatever. The soul yearns for it. Psychology seems to have forgotten that. View quote
James Hillman
The Greek idea of fate is moira, which means "portion." Fate rules a portion of your life. But there is more to life than just fate. There is also genetics, environment, economics, and so on. So it's not all written in the book before you get here, such that you don't have to do anything. That's fatalism. View quote
James Hillman
Attention is the cardinal psychological virtue. On it depends perhaps the other cardinal virtues, for there can hardly be faith nor hope nor love for anything unless it first receives attention. View quote
James Hillman
I tend to think that you fulfill your own destiny, whether you realize it or not. View quote
James Hillman