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 perfection of mathematical beauty is such that whatsoever is most beautiful and regular is also found to be most useful and excellent." Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

2		"Worldwide tradition acknowledges humans as being composed in accord with natural principles and made in the image of the cosmos."

3		"The archetypal principles of number manifest themselves as forms around us. Circles and spheres, triangles, squares, pentagons, spirals, and the five Platonic volumes represent principles that shape the world."

4		"Only by acknowledging both poles in the pair as inseparable can we overcome relative duality and get to their common source in the Monad. In our deepest Self we are beyond all polarity."

5		"The manifest cosmos is an approximation of its mathematical ideal."

6		"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

7		"Geometric construction can be used as a form of meditation. Ponder the point as a seed enfolding a sacred mystery."

8		"Cognizance of harmony in nature and mathematics attunes us to harmony at our own core."

9		"Our deepest awareness, the power that motivates all awareness, which we can call the 'Power to Be Conscious,' of which we are not ordinarily cognizant, recognizes its own transcendental nature in the geometry of the circle. For this reason the circle has been a universal symbol of an ideal perfection and divine state that always exists around and within us whether we acknowledge it or not."

10		"The One underlies the Many."

11		"A circle [is] the traditional symbol of heaven, wholeness, and unity."

12		"At the center of our Self, deep within our consciousness, is a calm 'I.' Like the calm 'eye' within a storm, our center is untouched by psychological turbulence. Peaceful, it observes all from the vantage of wisdom. Placid, it is unmoved by the turbulent weather of the surrounding psyche. When you're feeling connected with your center it seems very familiar. It feels like the Self you know best, like who and what you know your Self to be, calm in knowing without thinking. To be centered is not the same as being 'self-centered' or selfish. Instead, it is identity with the deep, divine power that motivates us."

13		"I am One that transorms into Two…I am Two that transforms into Four…I am Four that transforms into Eight…After this I am One again." Egyptian (Hermopolitan) creation myth

14		"Studying, contemplating, and living in agreement with universal principles is a social responsibility and can be a spiritual path. It is becoming clear that when we cooperate with nature's ways we succeed; when we resist, we struggle. Implications for our environmental crises are obvious."

15		"Islamic tradition holds that there are one hundred names of God but only ninety-nine are knowable and speakable, and they are called the 99 Beautiful Names of Allah. The highest pronounceable name is 'The Compassionate.'"

16		"Looking at a circle is like looking into a mirror. We create and respond irresistibly to circles, cylinders, and spheres because we recognize ourselves in them. The message of the shape bypasses our conscious mental circuitry and speaks directly to the quiet intelligence of our deepest being. The circle is a reflection of the world's – and our own – deep perfection, unity, design excellence, wholenes, and divine nature."

17		"This knowledge of ourselves as part of a harmonious whole is now dimmed to everyday awareness, but it can be part of a great vision to be reclaimed."

18		"Consistent themes in these [mythic] stories emerge quickly: opposites are balanced by a third, mediating element that reconciles a conflict, healing the split of polarity and transforming separate parts into a complete and successful whole."

19		"The orderly process of geometric construction shows us the steps nature metaphorically uses to clothe the archetypal patterns. The geometer gradually learns to see the world of common experience as governed by laws of nature that can be understood as expressions of mathematical archetypes."

20		"The world's material forms are only approximations of ideal, eternal archetypes."

21		"To know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind." Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher

22		"Sacred space is within us…Wherever we go we bring the sacred within us to the sacred around us."

23		"It is as if the universe is one single organism, motivated by a single power, developing in many ways to gradually become aware of itself through the awareness of the creatures and forces it produces."

24		"It is stirring to realize that each of the physical structures of the universe is a repackaging of the others. We hold the proportions of the solar system in our hands, face, and whole body."

25		"Traditionally, the center is the most honorable place, known to the Greeks as 'the keep of Zeus.' Protector of hearths and boundaries (centers and circumferences) and the source of moral order, Zeus dispensed judgment from the center."