Douglas Gillette > Quotes

“The Warrior archetype is hard-wired into our brain structure. Socialization means repression, which only keeps aggressiveness in an all the more volatile, compressed, and explosive form. But aggression is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. In many ways legitimate aggression contributes vitally to our lives. In aggression we find our drives for life, career, social contact, self-definition, and service. Perseverance and fidelity are products of the Warriors determination. Though the Lover initiates a relationship, it is the Warrior who maintains it-without the Warrior the Lover is merely promiscuous. The answer then is not to banish any of the archetypes, but to work on achieving the maturity necessary to manage them.”
― Douglas Gillette, The Warrior Within: Accessing the Warrior in the Male Psyche

“After years of research, depth psychologists and others argue that each sex carries both the psychological and physical traits of the other. No man is purely masculine, just as there is no purely feminine woman. Jungian psychologists call the feminine characteristics of the male psyche the Anima; the female psyche's masculine characteristics they the Animus.
Both the Animus and Anima develop in complex fashion as the personality grows to maturity. Neither men nor women can reach psychological maturity without integrating their respective contrasexual other. A man's female elements enhance his manhood, just as a woman's male aspects enhance her womanhood.”
― Douglas Gillette, The Warrior Within: Accessing the Warrior in the Male Psyche

“Ours is not an age that wants heroes. Ours is an age of envy, in which laziness and self-involvement are the rule. Anyone who tries to shine, who dares to stand above the crowd, is dragged down by his lackluster and self-appointed “peers”.”
― Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover

“In his lostness-within and without-the victim of the active pole of the Shadow Lover is eternally restless. This is the man who is always searching for something. He doesn’t know what it is he is looking for, but he is the cowboy at the end of the movie riding off alone into the sunset seeking something other excitement, some other adventure, unable to settle down. He has an insatiable hunger to experience some vague something that is just over the next hill.”
― Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover