She Quotes

“...it is almost always the case that whatever has wounded you will also be instrumental in your healing.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Most men get their deepest conviction of self-worth from a woman, wife, mother, or if they are highly conscious, from their own anima. The woman sees and shows the man his value by lighting the lamp.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“First we must learn to think mythologically. Powerful things happen when we touch the thinking which myths, fairy tales, and our own dreams bring to us. The terms and settings of the old myths are strange; they seem archaic and distant to us, but if we listen to them carefully and take them seriously, we begin to hear and to understand.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“A man depends largely on woman for the light in the family as he is not well equipped at finding meaning for himself. Life is often dry and barren for him unless someone bestows meaning on life for him. With a few words, a woman can give meaning to a whole day’s struggle and a man will be so grateful. A man knows and wants this; he will edge up to it, initiate little occasions so that a woman can shed some light for him. When he comes home and recounts the events of the day, he is asking her to bestow meaning on them. This is the light-bearing quality of a woman.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Very few women understand how great is the hunger in a man to be near femininity...(b)ut if a woman wishes to give a most precious gift to a man, if she would truly feed this masculine hunger (a hunger that he will seldom show but that is always there), she will be very, very feminine when her man is in a mood, so he can get his bearings and be a man again.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“the urge toward suicide signals an edge of a new level of consciousness. If you can kill the right thing—the old way of adaptation—and not injure yourself, a new energy-filled era will begin.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“a woman has control over her feelings and inner world, a capacity unknown to most men. She can enter at will a deep place within herself where healing and balance are restored.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Aphrodite energy is a valuable quality. She is in the service of personal development and wields her terrible power to make those around her grow. When it is time for growth, the old ways and the”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“When one has grown strong and wise enough, the warring elements which cost so much suffering and anxiety, will become complementary elements and produce the great work of art which is your own life.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“When a woman is touched by an archetypal experience, she often collapses before it. It is in this collapse that she quickly recovers her archetypal connection and restores her inner being.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“When it is time for growth, the old ways and the old habits must welcome the new. The old way seems to hinder the new growth at every point, but if you persevere, this way will bring a new consciousness to birth.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Much of a man's mute yearning for a woman is his need for her light to show him - as well as her - his true nature and godhood. Every woman holds this terrible-wonderful power in her hands.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Often, when new growth occurs, the most dreadful things seem to happen, but then we see that they were exactly what was required.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“This confusion concerning the narrow definition of reality may be illustrated by the thinking of a small child after a nightmare. A parent may say, to be comforting, “It was only a dream; the monster was not real.” But the child is unconvinced, and rightly so. To him it was real, as alive and real as any outer experience. The monster he dreamed about was in his head and not in his bedroom, but it had, nonetheless, an awesome reality, with power over the child’s emotional and physical reactions. It had an inner reality for him that cannot and should not be denied.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“must do this. If she behaves strangely, or if something goes dreadfully wrong, or there are many tears, he usually doesn’t understand that marriage is a totally different experience for her than for him.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Marriage is a very different experience for a man than for a woman. The man is adding to his stature; his world is getting stronger, and he has risen in stature and position. He generally does not understand that he is killing the Psyche in his new wife, and that he”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“When a woman mediates beauty and grace to the world, often it is the Aphrodite or Venus energy at work.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“But when Aphrodite is confronting her daughter-in-law she is jealous, competitive and determined to set out hurdles for Psyche at every turn.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“For a young woman to cope with her mother-in-law’s power system is to attain feminine maturity.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Aphrodite often shows her tyrannical side and thinks her word is law.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“When a marriage begins the partners are like two discrete circles overlapping a little. The division between the two is great and each has specific tasks. As the marriage partners grow older, each learns a bit of the other's genius, and finally the two circles overlap more and more.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Much of the turmoil for a modern woman is the collision between her Aphrodite nature and her Psyche nature.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Aphrodite's mirror is symbolic of a most profound quality of the goddess of love. She frequently offers one a mirror by which one can see one's self, a self hopelessly stuck in projection without the help of the mirror. Asking what is being mirrored back can begin the process of understanding, which may prevent getting stuck in an insoluble emotional tangle. This is not to say there are not outer events. But it is important to realize and understand that many things of our own interior nature masquerade as outer events when they should be mirrored back into our subjective world from which they sprang. Aphrodite provides this mirror more often than we would like to admit. Whenever one falls in love, sees the god or goddess-like qualities in another, it is Aphrodite mirroring our immortality and divine-like qualities. We are as reluctant to see our virtues as our faults and a long period of suffering generally lies between the mirroring and the accomplishment.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“Transform or kill? This is a critical choice, especially for a modern woman. If the knife comes first there will probably be much damage. If the lamp comes first there is a chance of intelligence and growth. If she wields her tools carefully she can bring about a miracle of transformation-nothing less than the showing forth of the god, Eros in his true light. She can be justly pleased that her light produced the miracle. Much of a man's mute yearning for a woman is his need for her light to show him-as well as her-his true nature and godhood. Every woman holds this terrible-wonderful power in her hands.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

“The deepest interior mystery for a woman may not be named or given any label. It is the essence of that feminine quality which must remain a mystery, certainly to men, and hardly less so for women.
It is not less than the element of healing itself.”
― Robert A. Johnson, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology