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Too often in the west we fail to realize that even in eastern disciplines the spiritual life is not meant as an escape from the worldly life. There is karma to be fulfilled on earth, within the dharma of necessity.

James Hillman

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James Hillman
Age: 85 †
Born: 1926
Born: April 12
Died: 2011
Died: October 27
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
Psychologist
Atlantic City
New Jersey
Often
Meant
Dharma
Earth
West
Eastern
Even
Discipline
Worldly
Life
Failing
Karma
Realize
Fulfilled
Realizing
Necessity
Within
Escape
Spiritual
Fail
Disciplines

More quotes by James Hillman

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The capacity for people to kid themselves is huge. Living on illusions or delusions, and the re-establishing of these illusions or delusions requires a big effort to keep them from being seen through. But a very old idea is at work behind our current state of affairs: enantiodromia, or the Greek notion of things turning into their opposite.
James Hillman
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The new age self-help phenomenon is pretty mushy, but it's also very American. Our history is filled with traveling preachers and quack medicine and searches for the soul. I don't see this as a new thing. I think the new age is part of a phenomenon that's been there all along.
James Hillman
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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.
James Hillman
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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.
James Hillman
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I see happiness as a by-product. I don't think you can pursue happiness. I think that phrase is one of the very few mistakes the Founding Fathers made
James Hillman
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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.
James Hillman
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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.
James Hillman
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It's very hard in our adversarial society to find a third view. Take journalism, where everything is always presented as one person against another: Now we're going to hear the opposing view. There is never a third view.
James Hillman
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Loss means losing what was. We want to change but we don't want to lose. Without time for loss, we don't have time for soul.
James Hillman
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We need to work on the world so it will not be so oppressive.
James Hillman
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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.
James Hillman
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I don't think anything changes until ideas change. The usual American viewpoint is to believe that something is wrong with the person.
James Hillman
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Psychotherapy theory turns it all on you: you are the one who is wrong. If a kid is having trouble or is discouraged, the problem is not just inside the kid it's also in the system, the society.
James Hillman
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To hope for nothing, to expect nothing, to demand nothing. This is analytical despair.
James Hillman
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Love alone is not enough. Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining.
James Hillman
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I don't think you can revive traditions on purpose.
James Hillman
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The psyche is highly flammable material. So we are always wrapping things in asbestos, keeping our images and fantasies at arm's length because they are so full of love
James Hillman
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We cannot be studied or cured apart from the planet.
James Hillman
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Instead of seeing depression as a dysfunction, it is a functioning phenomenon. It stops you cold, sets you down, makes you damn miserable.
James Hillman
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I don't think anything changes until ideas change.
James Hillman