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
SHOW detailed search and navigation | Quotes | References | JoAnn
1 | "Heraclitus used the word 'logos' to refer to the underlying organizational principle of the universe – the ultimate whole experience – through which 'all things are one'." Keith Critchlow, 'The Platonic Tradition' | |
2 | "Nothing is a thing by itself. It takes its meaning and indeed its existence only in interaction with something else." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture' | |
3 | "There is a teleological message contained in the image of the spiral; for it moves in successively opposite directions towards the ultimate expression of both the infinitely expanded and the infinitely contracted. The spiral is constantly approaching these two incomprehensible aspects of the ultimate reality, and therefore symbolizes a universe moving toward the perfect singularity from which it arose." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture' | |
4 | "The cosmos is spiritually based and our human species shares in the divine." Arthur G. Zajonc, contemporary physicist, 'The Two Lights' | |
5 | "The mind is drawn quite naturally to the ideal of Truth; the heart or our values, is quite naturally drawn to the ideal of Beauty; the guts or will is quite naturally drawn to the ideal of the Good." Keith Critchlow, 'Twelve Criteria for Sacred Architecture' | |
6 | "The cosmos is one, unique, and could not be otherwise, as it reflects the Oneness of its Cause." Keith Critchlow, 'The Platonic Tradition' | |
7 | "That the Universe is a living being with soul and spirit is a traditional doctrine expressed more or less in all revelations." Keith Critchlow, 'Twelve Criteria for Sacred Architecture' | |
8 | "Light is consciousness imaging itself. So each particular is a tiny holographic image of self-perception within a larger, anthropocosmic formation of self-perception. Perception is the unceasing activity of existence. The universe is created in perception: it evolves through the evolution of perception; and its goal lies in the perfection of self-perception." Robert Lawlor, 'Pythagorean Number as Form, Color, and Light' | |
9 | "Our bodies and minds, their architecture, processes and energies, could not be other than those of the universe that we observe, image and experience. Body, Mind and Universe must be in a parallel, formative identity. From this point of view, 'Man know thyself' was the principle of ancient science, as it is also coming to be in ultra-modern science." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture' | |
10 | "The followers of Pythagoras and Empedocles, and most of the Italian philosophers, say that there is a certain community uniting us not only with each other and with the gods, but even with creation. There is in fact one breath pervading the whole cosmos like a soul and uniting us with them." Sextus Empiricus, 'Advanced Mathematics' | |
11 | "Every power in nature and in spirit must evolve an opposite as the sole means and condition of its manifestation: and all opposition is a tendency to reunion." Samuel Taylor Coleridge | |
12 | "It is now, all at once, one, continuous….Nor is it divisible more here and less there….but it is full of what is." Heraclitus, Fragment 8 | |
13 | "Cosmos is much more than just the universe. It includes the idea of beauty, order or goodness, and structural perfection which we might call truth. All of these are held together by the prior principle of unity, which, manifesting as Cosmos – one mass of Life and Consciousness as the 'Corpus Hermeticum' will say – becomes a teaching of the harmony, sympathy and kinship of all things." Christopher Bamford, Introduction | |
14 | "All things that are ever said to be consist of a one and a many." Plato, 'Philebus' | |
15 | "Dante said, 'The elements of all things that Nature begins, whatever be their mode, observe an inner order. It is this Form that makes the Universe resemble God.'" Robert Lawlor, 'Pythagorean Number as Form, Color, and Light' | |
16 | "You issue from God's attributes at first; return again back to those attributes with all speed!...You begin as a part of the sun, clouds, and stars, you rise to be breath, act, word, and thought!" Rumi, 'The Masnavi' | |
17 | "Creating and using symbols…allows human individuals and populations to communicate over vast spans of time and space….giving the human mind the opportunity to flow backwards and forward in time through the retention or projection of symbols contained within its own memory and imagination." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture' | |
18 | "The creature is in Brahma, and Brahma is in the creature; they are ever distinct, yet ever united. He Himself is the tree, the seed, and the germ. He Himself is the flower, the fruit and the shade. He Himself is the sun, the light, and the lighted. He Himself is Brahma, creature, and Maya. He Himself is the manifold form, the infinite space; He is the breath, the word, and the meaning." Kabir | |
19 | "Wisdom is one and unique – to know the intelligence by which all things are steered through all things." Heraclitus, Fragment 32 | |
20 | "As Plato teaches in the 'Timaeus', the universe is one single, visible living being." Christopher Bamford, introduction | |
21 | "Every event is connected to every other event." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture' | |
22 | "Both as a principle of unity and a model of the cosmos, the sphere represents the ultimate undivided, undifferentiated whole." Keith Chritchlow, 'Twelve Criteria for Sacred Architecture' | |
23 | "the whole world is the outward form of universal reason." Rumi, 'The Masnavi' | |
24 | "The universe is of one piece – it is a 'one only': one humanity, one nature, one universe, one God." | |
25 | "Total healthiness comes from wholeness, which is holiness. This resonance enables a consonance to sound from microcosm through mesocosm to macrocosm, and is the root and secret to finding unity and the unified experience." Keith Critchlow, 'What Is Sacred in Architecture?" | |