"The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown"
About this Quote
The rhetorical turn is that final verb: “outgrown.” Jung swaps the language of engineering for the language of development. You don’t defeat the problem; you become larger than the frame that made it feel total. That’s the subtext of individuation in a sentence: psychic maturation isn’t a linear climb toward certainty, it’s an expanding capacity to hold contradiction without collapsing into denial, compulsion, or grand theories. The “solution” many people chase is often just an anxious demand for closure - a way to silence inner conflict rather than integrate it.
Context matters. Jung is writing in the early 20th century, watching industrial modernity promise control while European culture slides into fracture and war. Psychoanalysis, too, can be misread as a cure machine. Jung’s counteroffer is harsher and more humane: suffering doesn’t always end, but it can change shape when the self changes shape. “Outgrown” is adulthood as a psychological stance - less mastery, more amplitude.
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Jung, Carl. (2026, January 15). The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-greatest-and-most-important-problems-of-life-35425/
Chicago Style
Jung, Carl. "The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-greatest-and-most-important-problems-of-life-35425/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-greatest-and-most-important-problems-of-life-35425/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.











