“Aion is a child at play, gambling; a child’s is the kingship. Telesphorus traverses the dark places of the world, like a star flashing from the deep, leading the way to the gates of the sun and the land of dreams.”

— C.G. Jung

Combining fragments of Heraclitus and Homer
Bollingen Tower inscriptions (1950)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 26, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Aion is a child at play, gambling; a child’s is the kingship. Telesphorus traverses the dark places of the world, like …" by C.G. Jung?

C.G. Jung 257

Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytic… 1875–1961

Related quotes

“I never dreamed the sea so deep,
The earth so dark; so long my sleep,
I have become another child.
I wake to see the world go wild.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

“"My Father, it is dark!" "Child, take my hand,
Cling close to me; I'll lead thee through the land,
Trust my all-seeing care, so shalt thou stand
'Midst glory bright above."
Can we be unsafe where God has placed us, and where He
watches over us as a parent a child that he loves?”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 264.

“The Geschick of being: a child that plays… Why does it play, the great child of the world-play Heraclitus brought into view in the aiôn? It plays, because it plays. The "because" withers away in the play. The play is without "why."”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

The Principle of Reason (1955–1956) as translated by Reginald Lilly (1991) 
Context: The Geschick of being: a child that plays... Why does it play, the great child of the world-play Heraclitus brought into view in the aiôn? It plays, because it plays. The "because" withers away in the play. The play is without "why." It plays since it plays. It simply remains a play: the most elevated and the most profound. But this "simply" is everything, the one, the only... The question remains whether and how we, hearing the movements of this play, play along and accommodate ourselves to the play.

“The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

“Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.”

Heraclitus (-535) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

Quoted by Hippolytus, Refutation of all heresies, IX, 9, 4 (Fragment 52), as translated in Reality (1994), by Carl Avren Levenson and Jonathan Westphal, p. 10
Variants:
History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man’s power in the world.
As quoted in Contemporary Literature in Translation (1976), p. 21
A lifetime is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.
As quoted in The Beginning of All Wisdom: Timeless Advice from the Ancient Greeks (2003) by Steven Stavropoulos, p. 95
Time is a game played beautifully by children.
As quoted in Fragments (2001) translated by Brooks Haxton
Lifetime is a child at play, moving pieces in a game. Kingship belongs to the child.
As quoted in The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979) translated by Charles H. Kahn