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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The World's Religions
Huston Smith
Chapters on Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, plus chapters on primal religions such as native traditions of the Americas, Australia, Africa and Oceania, with expanded sections on the inner dimensions of these great religions.

1 "One has lived from an endless past and will live into an endless future. At this very moment one partakes of Eternal Life – blissful, luminous, pure." Ruth Fuller Sasaki, 'Zen – A Religion'

2 "The prerequisite of political stability is social justice, for it is in the nature of things that injustice will not endure."

3 "Myths plumb depths that the intellect can see only obliquely. Parables and legends present ideals in ways that make hearers long to embody them."

4 "When a heart is illumined by true knowledge, it knows that above all these wars of sects and sectarians presides the one indivisible, eternal, all-knowing bliss." Ramakrishna

5 "The integrating principle of the whole – the Spirit, as it were, of the universe – instinct without contrivance, flows with purpose." George Romanes, Charles Darwin's colleague

6 "I saw my Lord with the eye of the Heart. I said: 'Who are you?' He answered: 'You.'" Al-Hallaj

7 "The Supreme Being is…everything in his creation. The various forms of creation have some of his spirit within them." Carl Gorman, Navajo (Native American) artist

8 "Every religion mixes universal principles with local peculiarities. The former, when lifted out and made clear, speak to what is generically human in us all."

9 "God is the Cosmic Dancer, whose routine is all creatures and all worlds."

10 "The various religions are but different languages through which God speaks to the human heart. 'Truth is one; sages call it by different names.' [the Vedas]"

11 "Life being one,…our duty to our fellows is to understand them as extensions, other aspects, of ourselves – fellow facets of the same Reality." Christmas Humphreys, 'Buddhism'

12 "You can find God in the world of everyday affairs as readily as anywhere."

13 "Seen in perspective, the world is ultimately benign."

14 "The will remains free. The lawfulness of things makes the present state the product of prior acts, but within the present the will is influenced but not controlled. People remain at liberty to shape their destinies."

15 "The welfare of everything in creation is affected to some degree by what each individual contributes to or detracts from it."

16 "A typical feature of religion is grace, the belief - ..that Reality is ultimately on our side. In last resort the universe is friendly; we can feel at home in it."

17 "The One is none other than the All, the All none other than the One. Take your stand on this, and the rest will follow of its own accord." Seng Ts'an, 'Trust in the Heart'

18 "Locked in every human being is a store of love that partakes of the divine – the 'imago dei', image of God, it is sometimes called."

19 "The career of a soul as it threads its course…is guided by its choices, which are controlled by what the soul wants and wills at each stage of the journey."

20 "Everything is prepared for the good of human beings." Yi-Pao Mei, ancient Chinese philosopher, 'Motse'

21 "In the context of wholeness, the opposites appear as no more than phases in an endless cycling process, for each turns incessantly into its opposite, exchanging places with it. Life…bends back upon itself to come, full circle, to the realization that all is one and all is well."

22 "The overwhelming thrust of the Koran is to proclaim the unity, omnipotence, omniscience, and mercy of God."

23 "We live in a world in which there is no chance or accident. Those words are simply covers for ignorance."

24 "Human bodies are of course separate, but on a deeper level we are joined like icebergs in a common floe."

25 "Twenty-five hundred years ago it took an exceptional man like Diogenes to exclaim, 'I am not an Athenian or a Greek but a citizen of the world.' Today we must all be struggling to make those words our own. We have come to the point in history when anyone who is only Japanese or American, only Oriental or Occidental, is only half human. The other half that beats with the pulse of all humanity has yet to be born."

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite