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		"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.'"

2		"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."

3		"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."

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

5		"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."

6		"Numbers keep recurring not because we make them do so but because they are inherent in the proportions of nature that express the timeless mathematical archetypes."

7		"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

8		"Scientists confirm with formulas what ancient seers knew through revelation: that the world's patterns and cycles are harmonious when seen as mathematical relationships…Where we see 'things', nouns and discrete objects, the ancient mathematical philosophers saw PROCESSES, verbs, transforming patterns meshed harmoniously."

9		"Intuition is the clear conception of the whole at once." Johann Lavater (1741-1801), Swiss poet, mystic and philosopher

10		"Human nature mirrors outer nature."

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

12		"Oh, grant me my prayer, that I may never lose the touch of the one in the play of the many." Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Indian poet

13		"A common theme in worldwide mythology is the human as microcosm, a miniature model of the whole universe…this view was long considered a key to the understanding of the Self. The ancient philosophers saw their inner lives arranged according to nature's own harmonies, for in nature, geometry, and their spiritual lives they discovered the same principles."

14		"That's why the world is called a UNIverse (Latin for 'one turn'). No other universes exist except within this One, which Plato refers to as the 'whole of wholes'."

15		"'Harmony' (from the Greek 'harmonia', signifying 'fitting together') in music, as elsewhere in the cosmos, comes from the reconciliation of opposites by a third element, bringing them all a new unity."

16		"The simple beauty of a crystal is, in part, its strict mathematical order. Through the study of number and shape we begin to apprehend the cosmic order."

17		"The central secret is to know that the various human passions and feelings and emotions in the human heart are not wrong in themselves; only they have to be carefully controlled and given a higher and higher direction, until they attain the very highest condition of excellence." Vivekananda (1863-1902), Indian spiritual teacher

18		"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

19		"Men must be aware of the wisdom and the strength that is in them if their understanding is to be expanded." Vauvenargues (1715-1747), French soldier, moralist

20		"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."

21		"Our mind divides the world into heaven and earth, day and night, light and darkness, right and left, man and woman, I and you – and the more strongly we sense the separation between these poles, whatever they may be, the more powerfully do we also sense their unity." Karl Menninger (1892-1990), American psychiatrist

22		"Nature itself rests on an internal foundation of archetypal principles symbolized by numbers, shapes, and their arithmetic and geometric relationships."

23		"The one Godhead, secret in all beings, all-pervading, the inner Self of all, presiding over all action, witness, conscious knower and absolute….the One in control over the many,… fashions one seed in many ways." Swetaswatara Upanishad

24		"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."

25		"God created the universe through the Breath of the Compassionate." Mohammed (ca. 570-632)