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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.

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
Firsts
Depends
First
Unless
Love
Perhaps
Cardinal
Virtue
Cardinals
Attention
Receives
Faith
Virtues
Hope
Hardly
Anything
Psychological

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Follow the lead of your symptoms, for there’s usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul.
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Each morning, we return from the dream soul trying to adjust to the day world, that moment when the two souls exchange places in the driver’s seat.
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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.
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Teachers today can't take to a child.
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I think we're miserable partly because we have only one god, and that's economics.
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I've found that contemporary psychology enrages me with its simplistic ideas of human life, and also its emptiness.
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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.
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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.
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From my perspective as a depth psychologist, I see that those who have a connection with story are in better shape and have better prognosis than those to whom story must be introduced.
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We have to give value to authority. We have to give value to office, being in office, holding office.
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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
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We need to work on the world so it will not be so oppressive.
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We're an air bag society that wants guarantees on everything that we buy. We want to be able to take everything back and get another one. We want a 401-k plan and Social Security.
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The culture is going into a psychological depression. We are concerned about our place in the world, about being competitive: Will my children have as much as I have? Will I ever own my own home? How can I pay for a new car? Are immigrants taking away my white world?
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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.
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Fear is a huge thing for older people.
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We dull our lives by the way we conceive them.
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It's better to go into the world half-cocked than not to go into the world at all.
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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.
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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.
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