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		"In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality." George Santayana (1863-1952), Spanish-born American philosopher, 'Reason in Common Sense'

2		"Nothing under the sun is accidental." Gotthold E. Lessing (1729-1781), German dramatist, 'Emilia Galotti'

3		"A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love." Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, 'On Friendship'

4		"The question was once put to him [Aristotle], how we ought to behave to our friends; and the answer he gave was, 'As we should wish our friends to behave to us.'" Diogenes Laertius (fl. 200 ad), Biographer of Greek philosophers, 'Aristotle'

5		"The shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and sea there has been this place of the meeting of land and water. Yet it is a world that keeps alive the sense of continuing creation and of the relentless drive of life. Each time I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its suroundings." Rachel Carson (1907-1964), American naturalist, author, 'The Edge of the Sea'

6		"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918), American historian

7		"To fear love is to fear life." Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British mathematician, philosopher, 'Marriage and Morals'

8		"Francis Thompson, the English poet, once wrote that one could not pluck a flower without troubling a star. Intuitively he had sensed the enormous interlinked complexity of life." Loren Eiseley (1907-1977), American anthropologist, 'How Flowers Changed the World'

9		"Morality is the observance of the rights of others." Dagobert D. Runes (1902-1982), American philosopher, 'Treasury of World Literature'

10		"No government can stand which is not founded on justice." Aristotle (384-322 bce), Greek philosopher, 'Politics', Bk. VII

11		"Love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve." Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), Russian writer

12		"The pursuit of perfection is the pursuit of sweetness and light….He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will of God prevail….Culture has a great passion, the passion for sweetness and light. It has one yet even greater! – the passion for making them prevail." Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), English poet, essayist, 'Culture and Anarchy'

13		"Tsze-kung asked, saying, 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life? The Master said, 'Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." Confucius (551-479 bce), Chinese sage, 'Analects'

14		"The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time and time again given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness and Beauty." Albert Einstein (1879-1955), 'The World As I See It'

15		"What's freedom for? To know eternity." Theodore Roethke (1908-1963), American poet, 'I Knew A Woman'

16		"Almighty God hath created the mind free." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd American President, 'The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom', 1779

17		"Africans believe in something that is difficult to render in English. We call it 'ubuntu, botho'. It means the essence of being human. You know when it is there and when it is absent. It speaks about humaneness, gentleness, hospitality, putting yourself out on behalf of others, being vulnerable. It embraces compassion and toughness. It recognizes that my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together." Desmond Tutu (b. 1931), South African cleric, 'The Words of Desmond Tutu'

18		"There is only one way for a man to be true to himself. If he does not know what is good, a man cannot be true to himself." Confucius (551-479 bce), Chinese sage, 'The Doctrine of Mean'

19		"Nature is the Art of God." Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet, 'Monarchy'

20		"My prayer is that my life be meaningful in the enhancement of His Kingdom on earth, enhancement of the lives of my fellow human beings." James Earl Carter (b.1924), 39th American President, interview with religious leaders, Indianapolis, December 1976

21		"I feel compelled to look for a first Cause." Charles Darwin (1809-1882), English biologist, letter to Rev. J. Fordyce, July 7, 1879

22		"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change, windows on the world, 'lighthouses' (as a poet said) 'erected in the sea of time.' They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print." 'Authors League Bulletin', November-December 1979

23		"Humans are of infinite worth intrinsically because they are created in God's image." Desmond Tutu (b. 1931), South African cleric, 'The Words of Desmond Tutu'

24		"It is a world cooperative commonwealth at which we ought to aim, built on freedom. A single country – or a group of countries – with this peaceful cooperative aim can make its impact on the whole world." David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973), Polish-born Israeli prime minister, New York Times Magazine, September 24, 1961

25		"I worship Christ, I worship Jehovah, I worship Pan, I worship Aphrodite…I want them all, all the gods. They are all God." D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), British writer, 'The Letters of D. H. Lawrence'