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 Choice Is Always Ours
Dorothy B. Phillips, Chief Editor
An anthology about the spiritual Way, chosen from psychological, religious, philosophical, poetical and biographical sources

1 "True self-revelation has always as its counterpart a growth in knowledge of God. For it is only in the light of God that we see ourselves for what we are." Edward Leen (1885-1944), Irish Catholic cleric and educator, 'Progress Through Mental Prayer'

2 "It is human to go through negative experiences, disappointments and frustrations. It is one of the ways leading us to maturity. Indeed, it is the opportunity to become We-feeling, objective, creative." Fritz Kunkel, M.D. (1889-1956), American psychiatrist, 'How Character Develops'

3 "The integrated personality does not merely express the individual totality, for in the actualization of his own a priori wholeness the individual also discovers his relatedness to a super-individual centre. This centre is the self which is paradoxically the quintessence of the individuum and at the same time of the collectivum. In other words: the experience of wholeness coincides with the experience of a centre of the personality and a meaning of life which transcends the individual. This is expressed for instance in the words of Nicolaus of Cusa who makes God say to man: 'Be thou thyself, and I shall be thine.'" Gerhard Adler (b. 1904), English Jungian analyst, 'Studies in Analytical Psychology'

4 "We are inescapably all members of one another." Rose Terlin, contemporary American editor and writer, 'Christian Faith and Social Action'

5 "All things are simply channels of the divine and spiritual." Meister Johannes Eckhart (1260-1327), German scholar and mystic

6 "The freedom of the individual might be defined as the preparedness to be formed by his own eidos, his inner image of wholeness which exists a priori in him. The more the individual becomes sensitive and receptive to his inner image, the more he becomes whole and 'healed'." Gerhard Adler (B. 1904), English Jungian analyst, 'Studies in Analytical Psychology'

7 "The philosophers Tilly and Seneca maintain that no rational soul is without God. The seed of God is in us." Meister Eckhart (1260-1327), German scholar and mystic

8 "He who would in his own person test the fact of God's presence can do so by a living faith. Exercise of faith will be the safest where there is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to Truth and Love." Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1848), Hindu statesman and mystic, 'Gandhi's Ideas'

9 "Everything I do is like the pebble thrown into a pool, making larger and larger ripples in the waters of other lives." Joshua Loth Liebman (1907-1948), American rabbi, educator, 'Peace of Mind'

10 "The whole gist of the matter lies in the will, and this is what our Dear Lord meant by saying, 'The Kingdom of God is within you.' It is not a question of how much we know, how clever we are…. it all depends upon the heart's love. External actions are the results of love, the fruit it bears; but the source, the root, is in the deep of the heart." Francois Fenelon (1651-1715), French Archbishop of Cambray

11 "God is. That is so real, that to talk of His love, or of serving Him is saying less, not more. He is, and He is with us." Alfred Romer, (b. 1907), American professor of physics

12 "Oh, who will give me a voice that I may cry aloud to the whole world that God, the all highest, is in the deepest abyss within us and is waiting for us to return to Him." Hans Denck (1495-1527), German mystic, 'On the Law of God'

13 "The ability and willingness to enter into experience, honestly appraising it, finding its value in outer life and courageously exploring its inner meaning to us, is the attitude that sets free creative energy and makes life move within us." Frances G. Wickes (1875-1970), American psychotherapist, 'The Creative Process'

14 "Buddha proclaimed the unity of all living things." Alan W. Watts (1915-1973), American philosopher and author, 'The Spirit of Zen'

15 "There is inherent in man a longing and tendency towards wholeness, and only when this longing is stilled is his negative state of tension wiped out and neutralized." Gerhard Adler (b. 1904), English Jungian analyst, 'Studies in Analytical Psychology'

16 "I realize that in 'my' chemistry I am akin to earth and water; I recognize my kinship with flowers and grass and trees, with brooks and lakes and rivers, and I feel their rhythms flow through me with peace and power, as I yield my sense of them-in-separateness to the Unity which is their underlying reality." Ruth Raymond (1878-1969), American art educator, written for this anthology

17 "In broadest outline we see the universe evolving life and life evolving to continually extended awareness. We see our individuality as a phase – perhaps a hairpin bend in the zig-zag spiral of ascent – and we see that our task in cooperating with the purpose of life and the universe is so to act and to think that we become increasingly aware of our extra-individuality – that is, the common life which unites us with our fellow creatures with all life and the universe." Gerald Heard (1889-1972), English philosopher and author, 'The Third Morality'

18 "There are facets of failure in every person's makeup and there are elements of success. Both must be accepted while we try to emphasize the latter through self-knowledge." Joshua Loth Liebman (1907-1948), American rabbi, 'Peace of Mind', quoted in 'The Choice Is Always Ours', edited by Dorothy B. Phillips, Re-Quest Books 1975, p. 199

19 "Somehow we are part of a creative destiny, reaching backward and forward to infinity – a destiny that reveals itself…in our striving, in our love, our thought, our appreciation. We are the fruition of a process that stretches back to star dust. We are material in the hands of the Genius of the universe for a still larger destiny that we cannot see in the everlasting rhythm of worlds." John Elof Boodin, (1869-1950), American philosopher, 'Cosmic Evoltuion'

20 "I do want to think in terms of the whole world. My patriotism includes the good of mankind in general….Isolated independence is not the goal of the world States; it is voluntary interdependence. The better mind of the world desires today not absolutely independent States, warring one against another, but a federation of friendly, interdependent States." Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian statesman, mystic

21 "Tao acts without assertion, yet all things proceed in conformity with it." Laotzu, 6th century bce Chinese philosopher, 'Laotzu's Tao and Wu-Wei'

22 "I know that God exists. There is utter Reality, complete creative power holding the entire creation in its grasp. The whole of time and space is no more than an incident, a minute episode in the immeasurable order, power, and glory of complete Being." Gerald Heard, (1889-1971), English author and philosopher, 'The Creed of Christ'

23 "Freedom comes through complete acceptance of reality." Alan W. Watts (1915-1973), American philosopher and author, 'The Spirit of Zen'

24 "The idea of wholeness is an archetype of deep significance." Gerhard Adler (b. 1904), English Jungian analyst, 'Studies in Analytical Psychology'

25 "Now I find hidden, somewhere away in my nature, something that tells me that nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all." Oscar Wilde (1856-1900), English author, 'De Profundis'

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite