Many / One

A database of 11,000+ illuminated guiding quotations in 40 categories from 600+ inspired books by our most brilliant and influential authors.
Compiled by JoAnn Kite

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Opposites
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1 "From the living comes death, and from the dead, life; from the young, old age; and from the old, youth; from waking, sleep; and from sleep, waking; the stream of creation and decay never stands still….Construction and destruction, destruction and construction – this is the norm which rules in every circle of natural life from the smallest to the greatest. Just as the cosmos itself emerged from the primal, so must it return once more into the same – a double process running its measured course through vast periods, a drama eternally re-enacted." Heraclitus Jung's Psychology and Its Social Meaning (Ira Progoff, Ph.D.)

2 "Only by acknowledging both poles in the pair as inseparable can we overcome relative duality and get to their common source in the Monad. In our deepest Self we are beyond all polarity." A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science (Michael S. Schneider)

3 "Polarities are but the two extremes perceptible to us of one and the same motion." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

4 "It is a fact that symbols, by their very nature, can so unite the opposites that these no longer diverge or clash, but mutually supplement one another and give meaningful shape to life." Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Carl Jung (edited by Aniela Jaffe))

5 "Every moment of this strange and lovely life from dawn to dusk, is a miracle. Somewhere, always, a rose is opening its petals to the dawn. Somewhere, always, a flower is fading in the dusk. The incense that rises with the sun, and the scents that die in the dark, are all gathered, sooner or later, into the solitary fragrance that is God. Faintly, elusively, that fragrance lingers over all of us." Beverly Nichols, 'The Fool Hath Said' Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations (Frank S Mead, editor)

6 "Once you move beyond dualities and realize that life and death, up and down, in and out are all illusions, they join and become one." Miraculous Living (Rabbi Shoni Labowitz)

7 "Every tension of opposites culminates in a release, out of which comes the 'third'. In the third, the tension is resolved and the lost unity is restored." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

8 "Everything in the observable universe responds to an essential union of two opposites, a male and a female principle. From the miracle of electricity to the duality of night and day, everything is harmoniously based on a negative-positive principle." Kabbalah for the Modern World (Migene Gonzalez-Wippler)

9 "As the holy man and visionary Black Elk stood on the summit of Harney Peak, he had a mystical perception of the universe, a cosmos of harmony and balance transcending all polarities: 'Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world and while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw, for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes, as they must live together like one being.'" Shamanic Voices, A Survey of Visionary Narratives (Joan Halifax, Ph.D.)

10 "Polarity is a play of opposites which forces man to make a choice in his acting, handling and attitude. He may emphasize either the negative aspect and know pain or the positive and live above pain." The Flowering Tree (Gladys V. Jones)

11 “In the deity, the opposites cancel out.” Collected Works (Carl Jung)

12 "This focus of synthesis and unity, this resolution of dualities into greater, more inclusively loving wholes, is fundamental to the New Age." Soul Centered Astrology, A Key to Your Expanding Self (Alan Oken)

13 "The opposite poles…are but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized." The Secret Doctrine (Helena P. Blavatsky)

14 "There is one eternal Law in nature, one that always tends to adjust contraries and to produce final harmony." The Secret Doctrine (Helena P. Blavatsky)

15 "Everything in nature is dual and can only be known in contrast with its opposite, while the two in combination produce a metaphysical third which is their synthesis and perfect balance." The Meaning of Masonry (W. L. Wilmshurst)

16 "The eye of wisdom continues to see the play of opposites, of course, but it is no longer blinded to the all-embracing unity that underlies, interpenetrates, and harmonizes them." Translators The Upanishads, selections translated by Alistair Shearer and Peter Russell (Alistair Shearer and Peter Russell, translators)

17 "It is the law of the universal Logos that everything is defined by, tends toward, and is ultimately balanced by its opposite, so that all opposites ultimately constitute a unity." The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View (Richard Tarnas)

18 "The One…will again reassert his soverign claim, and gather all the fragmented and estranged shreds of being into the reconciled opposites of the one Word." Earthy Mysticism: Contemplation and the Life of Passionate Presence (William McNamara)

19 "The darkness within the psyche must be accepted, understood, and ultimately reconciled with the light, in a state of wholeness that is neither light nor darkness but a condition that is both, and yet more than either." The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead (Stephan A. Hoeller)

20 "There is something in the spirit of man that knows that the dualism, however apparently binding, runs out, exhausts itself, and leaves a core of assurance that the ultimate destiny of man is good." Howard Thurman One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from World Faiths (Matthew Fox)

21 "Right/wrong, good/evil, inside/outside, above/below, male/female, and all the rest of the delineating distinctions, obversely outline the ALL ONE." The Child Within Us Lives!, A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics (William Samuel)

22 "The marriage of opposites, the transcendence of duality, occurs in the realization of the Self." Michael Flanagin, Ph.D., 'The Mandala in Jungian Psychotherapy' Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing (Judith Cornell, Ph.D.)

23 "The powers of the right and the left unite in the harmony of wisdom." The Acts of John, The Apocryphal New Testament Collected Works (Carl Jung)

24 "God is the very spirit and nature of the universe, the image in which it is created, and knowable thus by sense, by reason, and by love, in gradual approximation. God is in all and in every part, and in him all opposites, including good and evil, coincide." The Masks of God (Joseph Campbell)

25 "God is the simultaneous mutual implication of all things, even the contradictory ones." Nicholas Cusanus (1401-1464) 'Apologia doctae ignorantiae' The Masks of God (Joseph Campbell)

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite