Shadow Side Quotes

Accepting your shadow side is an essential part of being authentic. ~ Bill George

How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole ~ C. G. Jung

It is painful - there is no denying it - to interpret radiant things from the shadow-side, and thus in a measure reduce them to their origins in dreary filth. But it seems to me to be an imperfection in things of beauty, and a weakness in man, if an explanation from the shadow-side has a destructive effect. ~ C. G. Jung

No society can understand itself without looking at its shadow side. ~ Gabor Mate

Strangely enough we strengthen love in ourselves when we raise into consciousness the shadow side of our lives. Conversely, when we keep negative feelings out of sight, they smother the love that seems to lie deeper and closer to the real self. This is probably why there is so much pain in not loving. The life that is not able to express the love which is so integral to it grows deformed. ~ Elizabeth O'Connor

shadow side: (n.) self you encounter when you do not look in the mirror. ~ Sol Luckman

Technology has a shadow side. It accounts for real progress in medicine, but has also hurt it in many ways, making it more impersonal, expensive and dangerous. The false belief that a safety net of sophisticated drugs and machines stretches below us, permitting risky or lazy lifestyle choices, has undermined our spirit of self-reliance. ~ Andrew Weil

Over the past seventy years the various identity struggles have to some degree remediated the great wrongs that have been done to workers, people of color, Indigenous Peoples, women, gays and lesbians, and the disabled, while helping to humanize our society overall. But they have also had a shadow side in the sense that they have encouraged us to think of ourselves more as determined than as self-determining, more as victims of 'isms' (racism, sexism, capitalism, ableism) than as human beings who have the power of choice. For our own survival we must assume individual and collective responsibility for creating a new nation - one that is loved rather than feared and one that does not have to bribe and bully other nations to win support. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

I am no longer alone with myself, and I can only artificially recall the scary and beautiful feeling of solitude. This is the shadow side of the fortune of love. ~ C. G. Jung

I live in negotiation with a shadow side that has to be respected. ~ Russell Brand

It is under all circumstances an advantage to be in full possession of one's personality, otherwise the repressed elements will only crop up as a hindrance elsewhere, not just at some unimportant point, but at the very spot where we are most sensitive. If people can be educated to see the shadow-side of their nature clearly, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more self-knowledge can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures. ~ C. G. Jung

The light of love shines "in the darkness" (John 1:5), in suffering, in confusion, in all that we will never understand. Love makes darkness itself shine. This opens altogether new possibilities for dealing creatively with the shadow side of reality. Words can only serve as pointers; we must put this to the test in our own dark hours. Those who have done so, those who have suffered lovingly, have discovered the transformative power of love. ~ David Steindl-Rast

You can use whatever term you want: besetting sin, shadow side, strength and weakness. The very thing that makes you you, that makes you great, that makes you different from everyone else is also the thing that, unchecked, will ruin you. For me, it's lust for life. It's energy, curiosity, hunger. ~ Shauna Niequist

My dark side, my shadow, my lower companion is now in the back room blowing up balloons for kids' parties. ~ Gary Busey

We all have a dark side. Most of us go through life avoiding direct confrontation with that aspect of ourselves, which I call the shadow self. There's a reason why. It carries a great deal of energy. ~ Lorraine Toussaint

Our sexual lives are maintained by the shadow side and the light side, so the more we can understand and embrace enlightenment, the less need there is for chemical enhancement. ~ Kyan Douglas

Trying to impose our personal agenda on someone else's experience is the shadow side of love, while real love recognizes that life unfolds at its own pace. ~ Sharon Salzberg

So are demons forces that are totally external to us who seek to defy God? Are they just the shadow side of our own souls? Are they social constructions from a premodern era? Bottom line: Who cares? I don't think demons are something human reason can put its finger on. Or that human faith can resolve. I just know that demons, whether they be addictions or actual evil spirits, are not what Jesus wants for us, since basically every time he encounters them he tells them to piss off. ~ Nadia Bolz-Weber

It followed us during half of our orbit. We observed it on the light side, and when we entered the shadow side, it disappeared completely. It was an engineered structure, made from some type of metal, approximately 40 meters long with inner hulls. The object was narrow here and wider here, and inside there were openings. Some places had projections like small wings. The object stayed very close to us. We photographed it, and our photos showed it to be 23 to 28 meters away. ~ Viktor Mikhailovich Afanasyev

You can make yourself feel better about yourself if you project your shadow side, if you project your own potential for evil onto someone else. By annihilating them and, therefore, your shadow, you bring yourself into some state of purity or reformation. ~ Jennifer Beals

I was a shitty version of myself. The shadow side. I made a lot of noise because I felt bad about hurting someone's feelings and I didn't want to get quiet and really figure out how I felt. I was afraid to lie down and put my hand on my heart and hear the tiny voice whispering inside me saying I had screwed up. ~ Amy Poehler

Everything has a shadow-side. In my opinion, that is what makes life interesting. ~ Anne Fortier

To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means. ~ Brennan Manning

For all the successes of Western civilization, the world paid a dear price in terms of the most crucial component of existence - the human spirit. The shadow side of high technology - modern warfare and thoughtless homicide and suicide, urban blight, ecological mayhem, cataclysmic climate change, polarization of economic resources - is bad enough. Much worse, our focus on exponential progress in science and technology has left many of us relatively bereft in the realm of meaning and joy, and of knowing how our lives fit into the grand scheme of existence for all eternity. ~ Eben Alexander

The rain began to fall harder, and it distracted him, but he tried to pull himself back because he felt on the verge of understanding something large and important. It seemed to him that this moment - the light and wind, the sweep of fields, the falling rain, the lowing cows, Leah's form as it twisted to one side and then another - captured a sort of life that he longed for, a life of order and harsh beauty, and although this was his farm and his vision, it did not seem to be his life. It seemed instead to be the thing for which he must daily give up his life, an act of submission to something he could not name and only rarely, in moments such as these, have a sense of. Life during these moments seemed neither lost nor ruined but a power to be shared, as the grass shares its power with the living things that devour it. ~ Robert Boswell

No matter how many leaves would the tree of your soul have in front of the intense heat in the words of Time in this world, they can never shade the eternity lost inside you. ~ Sorin Cerin

Even looking at my last film, 'Notorious,' you got a perception about B.I.G. and who he was, but there was a different side to him. ~ George Tillman, Jr.

There is in all of us a spirit of scepticism which remains with us all our lives. Our most treasured beliefs dwell in its shadow. It exists because we are all afraid of being duped. And with some of us, who have knelt before many idols only to discover eventually that they are things of stone made by men, this spirit of scepticism persists no matter how convincing the evidence may be that our doubts are baseless. For some of us it is not enough to see Lazarus raised from the dead. ~ Claude Houghton

the figures are shadow-swept, various, self-involved, and as turbulent as waves, as standing waves ...; and as I look at them, as I curl more tightly into shin-warmth on my preferred bench, I wonder which of these figures, too, are runaways, which of these scudding clumps are the moving forms of runaways ...but runaways whom I don't recognize, whose rightfulness I don't acknowledge: which of these figures am I denying ...; because it would take, I am sure, only a glance, only one shared eye-shudder, for all this to end, for their circumstances suddenly to reverse; it would only take one glance upon them...and one glance from them...; this, then, would be interpenetration, genuine interpenetration, a real refutation of figure and ground...; ~ Evan Dara

For a moment on the top of that bare pain of rock I wonder if I should run behind or ahead-which is the best way to protect her-and then I find us just running side by side. ~ Ally Condie

The last lingering shadow of the Jesuit, gliding behind curtains and concealing himself in cupboards, faded from my young life about the time when I first caught a distant glimpse of the late Father Bernard Vaughan. He was the only Jesuit I ever knew in those days; and as you could generally hear him half a mile away, he seemed to be ill-selected for the duties of a curtain-glider. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Actually I don't choose to expose myself in public. I choose to compete; the other side just comes with the package. ~ Paula Radcliffe

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. ~ Mark Twain

It was fantastic to dive from the side of the boat into the dark waters, for as you hit them they burst into a firework display of greeny-gold phosphorescence so that you felt as though you were diving into a fire. Swimming under water, people left trails of phosphorescence behind them like a million tiny stars and when finally Leonora, who was the last one to come aboard, hauled herself up, her whole body for a brief moment looked as though it was encased in gold.
"My God, she's lovely," said Larry admiringly, "but I'm sure she's a lesbian. She resists all my advances."
"She's certainly very lovely," said Sven, "so beautiful, in fact, that it almost makes me wish I weren't a homosexual. However, there are advantages to being homosexual."
"I think to be bisexual is best," said Larry, "then you've got the best of both worlds, as it were. ~ Gerald Durrell

I love to chase my shadow to feel how it rests in the dark. ~ Munia Khan

I felt her come by later, as I was dozing off. Her standing, by my bed. The depth of shadow of a person felt behind closed eyelids. ~ Aimee Bender

When it seems that God shows us the faults of others, keep on the safer side-it may be that your judgment is false. On your lips let silence abide. And any vice that you may ascribe to others, ascribe at once to them and yourself, in true humility. If that vice really exists in a person, he will correct himself better, seeing himself so gently understood, and will say of his own accord the thing that you would have said to him. ~ St. Catherine Of Siena

Love, what is love? I don't think you can really put it into words. Love is understanding someone, caring for him, sharing his joys and sorrows. This eventually includes physical love. You've shared something, given something away and received something in return, whether or not you're married, whether or not you have a baby. Losing your virtue doesn't matter, as long as you know that for as long as you live you'll have someone at your side who understands you, and who doesn't have to be shared with anyone else! ~ Anne Frank

In those days, between the ages of 12 and 18 you meant nothing. You were the extra place at the side table if someone came to dinner. You were of no interest to anyone. ~ Alexis Korner

What would you give to hear from your Departed Loved Ones, Guardian Angels, or Spirit Guides - to receive information that they were alive and well on the Other Side, and paying attention to your life? ~ Paul Stefaniak

The Bully has a Jekyll and Hyde nature - is vile, vicious and vindictive in private, but innocent and charming in front of witnesses; no-one can (or wants to) believe this individual has a vindictive nature - only the current target of the serial bully's aggression sees both sides; whilst the Jekyll side is described as "charming" and convincing enough to deceive personnel, management and a tribunal, the Hyde side is frequently described as "evil"; Hyde is the real person, Jekyll is an act. ~ Tim Field

The term "FTM-Butch Border War" just sounds like an alien land of yore. How is it that the gravitational pull of my beard and low-voice should hold [my lesbian friend's] masculinity in deferential orbit? That when standing side-by-side we are supposedly read in comparison, rendering her unalterably more feminine - shorthand, in patriarchal societies, for "lesser than"?

Masculinity has more than enough space to spare. But sometimes its flesh-and-blood vessels act as if we have to wound each other for it, like dogs fighting over too few scraps. Anyway, [she] and I know without speaking that in reality, right here and right now in our present moment, that she and I are two different sides of the same coin; two keys sung for the same tune."

- from "Snapshots: "Sharing Space with Women," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014 ~ Mitch Kellaway

You want to see safe hands?' her dad asked. He went to the fruit bowl on the side of the table, took two apples and proceeded to juggle them. 'See? Safe as anything.'
'Are you proposing you juggle our newborn child?'
'Of course not,' he said. 'I'd only be able to juggle her if you'd had twins. Otherwise it would just be throwing.'
(...) 'From this moment on, I will be the best father the world has ever seen. Wifey, may I please hold my child?'
Valkyrie's mum looked at him suspiciously. 'When you hold a baby, what's the most important thing to remember?'
'Not to drop it,' he said proudly.
'Well, yes, well done dear, but I was thinking more about how you hold the baby.'
'Ah,' he said, 'Of course. The secret to holding a baby is to pick it up by the scruff of its neck.'
'You're thinking of kittens.'
'Pick it up by the ears, then.'
'You're thinking of nothing.'
'Can I please just hold her?'
'I don't think that's wise.'
'A lot of things aren't wise, Melissa. Is crossing the road with your eyes closed wise? No, but I do it anyway.'
His wife nodded. 'Stephanie, you are in charge of teaching Alice how to cross the road. ~ Derek Landy

I suppose it had something to do with it being a secret, just how much it had meant to me. Maybe all of us at Hailsham had little secrets like that
little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone with our fears and longings. But the very fact that we had such needs would have felt wrong to us at the time
like somehow we were letting the side down. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

The first thing is that we're being attacked by both the Writers Guild and the Producers Guild. Both of these groups are trying to diminish the importance and strength of the director. They're trying to do it through both frontal and side attacks. ~ John Frankenheimer

You should be able to voice your opinion and respect the voice of the other side. You should be willing to educate yourself and know what it is you're dealing with. ~ Steve Nash

If you are not yourself people will look right through you and see the pale shadow of someone else ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru

The constant dangers of sudden electrocution from above or drowning in liquid shit below keep him looking up and down as well as side-to-side. ~ Neal Stephenson

Win or lose the battle, you're on the winning side because you know the Lord." ~ Rowen ~ Jesseca Wheaton

Gary Larson: The funniest cartoonist I've ever seen. His two-volume set (The Complete Far Side) should be the textbook in any course taught on how to be funny on the comics page. ~ Stephan Pastis

Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built. ~ Erich Fromm

If you'll excuse a brief history lesson: most people didn't experience 'the sixties' until the seventies. Which meant, logically, that most people in the sixties were still experiencing the fifties
or, in my case, bits of both decades side by side. Which made things rather confusing. ~ Julian Barnes

I have, in the past, been attracted to really strong and dominant men. But on the other side, I have been attracted to very androgynous men. I don't typically fall for your average jock. I just like people that are a little atypical. ~ Lisa Marie Presley

Humans have a light side and a dark side, and it's up to us to choose which way we're going to live our lives. Even if you start out on the dark side, it doesn't mean you have to continue your journey that way. You always have time to turn it around. ~ Taraji P. Henson

Flocks of magpies have descended on our yard. I cannot sleep for all their raucous behavior. Perched on weathered fences, their green-black tales, long as rulers, wave up and down, reprimanding me for all I have not done.

I have done nothing for weeks. I have no work. I don't want to see anyone much less talk. All I want to do is sleep.

Monday, I hit rock-bottom, different from bedrock, which is solid, expansive, full of light and originality. Rock-bottom is the bottom of the rock, the underbelly that rarely gets turned over; but when it does, I am the spider that scurries from daylight to find another place to hide.

Today I feel stronger, learning to live with the natural cycles of a day and to not expect so much from myself. As women, we hold the moon in our bellies. It is too much to ask to operate on full-moon energy three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I am in a crescent phase. And the energy we expend emotionally belongs to the hidden side of the moon.... ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I sit in thy shadow but not alone. ~ Elizabeth Siddal

If your friend's feeling bad, it's hard to know what to do. Do you back away or try to help them? It's a really hard situation that I've been in. You want to support your friend. You want to be there. My advice is, don't get too involved with it, just be by their side. If they need your help, they'll ask for it. ~ Alia Shawkat