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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1		"The world snake, 'ouroboros', swallowing its own tail, expresses the essence of Gnostic esotericism. It is a representation of the cosmos, the circle of eternal becoming, often seen with the words "One is the All.'" Gnosticism: The Path of Inner Knowledge (Martin Seymour-Smith)

2		"The circular sea with no outlet, which perpetually replenishes itself by means of a spring bubbling up in its centre, is to be found in [the writings of] Nicholas of Cusa as an allegory of God." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

3		"Concentric circles, with one circle inside another, represents the cosmos." Symbols, Guiding Lights Along the Journey of Life (Kathleen R. Prata)

4		"In one sense, all sacred religious structures partake of the Mandala principle: the Egyptian and Mexican pyramids; the temples of India, Buddhist stupas; Islamic mosques; the pagodas of China and Japan; and the tipis and kivas of North America; in the churches and cathedrals of Christianity." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

5		"Between four and six thousand years ago the ancient peoples in Europe built stone circles and decorated them with interlocking scroll loops. Similar motifs appear all over the world. The psychologist Carl Jung said such images are archetypes or universal structures in the collective unconscious of humankind. Could such a collective wisdom perhaps be expressing its intuitions of the wholeness within nature, the order and simplicity, chance and predictability that lie in the interlocking and unfolding of things?" Turbulent Mirror (John Briggs and F. David Peat)

6		"The holistic perception of alchemy relates directly to the Mandala. Many alchemical charts take on a Mandala form in revealing the integral interrelationships between the elements and qualities of nature. Alchemy also defines the proceses of consciousness as an on-going state of integral awareness." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

7		"Mandalas are birth-places, vessels of birth in the most literal sense, lotus-flowers in which a Buddha comes to life." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

8		"Well, there is something magical about a circle. For one thing, geometrically it encompasses more space than any other shape. But this is just a mathematical beginning. The circle is also profoundly symbolic, for a circle travels without leave-taking. So it combines journeying with returning. It's powerful in bringing the two together." The Way Things Are (Huston Smith, edited by Phil Cousineau)

9		"The circle has been variously interpreted as a state of oneness, unity, heaven, the sun, Yang, the Self, ultimate wholeness, enlightenment." Seeing With the Mind's Eye (Mike Samuels, M.D. and Nancy Samuels)

10		"Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round." Black Elk (1863-1950), Native American elder A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science (Michael S. Schneider)

11		"No matter what cultural lens is used, the symbol of a circle which contains the whole world and the various evolutionary levels of consciousness is powerful and universal." Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing (Judith Cornell, Ph.D.)

12		"We know from experience that the protective circle, the mandala, is the traditional antidote for chaotic states of mind." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

13		"The idea of rotation is the keystone of most transcendent symbols: of the mediaeval 'Rota'; of the Wheel of Buddhist transformations; of the zodiacal cycle; of the myth of the Gemini; and of the 'opus' [work] of the alchemists. The idea of the world as a labyrinth or of life as a pilgrimage leads to the idea of the 'centre' as a symbol of the absolute goal of Man – Paradise regained….Pictorially, this central point is sometimes identified with the geometric centre of the symbolic circle." A Dictionary of Symbols (J. E. Cirlot)

14		"Stay at the centre of the circle and let all things take their course." Lao-Tzu Revelations: The Wisdom of the Ages (Paul Roland)

15		"Although 'wholeness' seems at first sight to be nothing but an abstract idea, it is nevertheless empirical in so far as it is anticipated by the psyche in the form of spontaneous or autonomous symbols. These are the quaternity or mandala symbols, which occur not only in the dreams of modern people who have never heard of them, but are widely disseminated in the historical records of many peoples and many epochs. Their significance as symbols of unity and totality is amply confirmed by history as well as by empirical psychology. What at first looks like an abstract idea stands in reality for something that exists and can be experienced, that demonstrates its a priori presence spontaneously." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

16		"We need to worship in circles again, preferably on the soil of Mother Earth wherever possible. Circles invite all creatures to be part of the grateful event and they allow the humans present to look each other in the eye while rounding and connecting themselves in step with the universe." The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (Matthew Fox)

17		"We are embedded in communities, circles within circles of communities, both small and large, focused and abstract. Holding up the ideal of unity, we strive to break down the walls which separate us from others – not only other nations and peoples, but other species and the natural world." Spiritual Literacy, Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life (Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat)

18		“Roundness partakes of the nature of wholeness because the circle or sphere (like wholeness) is without beginning or end. To think in round terms may be interpreted to mean keeping the mentality upon the level of greatest inclusiveness, ever striving to attain fuller inclusiveness.” Lectures on Ancient Philosophy (Manly P. Hall)

19		"In a twelfth-century hermetic text known as 'The Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers' there is a statement that has been quoted, through the centuries, by a number of Christian thinkers – among others, Alan of Lille (1128-1202), Nicholas Cusanus (1401-1464), Rabelais (1490?-1553), Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), and Pascal (1632-1662), as well as Voltaire (1694-1778); to wit: 'God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.'" Joseph Campbell Tarot Revelations (Joseph Campbell & Richard Roberts)

20		"From atom to god, the Law repeats itself in ever widening circles." Regents of the Seven Spheres (H. K. Challoner)

21		"In the state of consciousness natural to the field within the mandala – that of Self-realization, or nonduality – such opposites as inner and outer, or subjective and objective, male or female, matter and spirit, are all grasped as connected, married, ultimately unified." Michael Flanagin, Ph.D., 'The Mandala in Jungian Psychotherapy' Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing (Judith Cornell, Ph.D.)

22		"I have found that the eye which sees the whole circle expresses our soul simply and perfectly." Nikos Kazantzakis The Way of The Earth, Encounters with Nature in Ancient and Contemporary Thought (T. C. McLuhan)

23		"The world and its inhabitants are integral facets of one Mandala." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

24		"Each circle you see or create is a profound statement about the transcendental nature of the uni-verse." A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science (Michael S. Schneider)

25		"Deity and the cosmos may be likened to a circle or sphere whose circumference is nowhere – hence boundless – but those center is everywhere. And each monad is such a divine, immortal, preexistent center." Editors Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery (Cranston/Head, editors)