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		"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."

2		"In what way can a mathematical ratio permeate our souls? Through beauty. A deep part of ourselves recognizes in flowers and dancers the beauty of the mathematical infinite and sees in it the endlessness of our own depths. Natural beauty resonates with the archetypal nature within us."

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

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

5		"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.'"

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

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

8		"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."

9		"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."

10		"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."

11		"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."

12		"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

13		"The ancients were aware of nature's geometric language and purposefully employed it in their arts, crafts, architecture, philosophy, myth, natural science, religion, and structures of society from prehistoric times through the Renaissance. The world today needs scholars and researchers who give the ancients credit for their intelligence and understanding, to view their art and entire cultures in light of its mathematical symbolism."

14		"The harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number, and the heart and soul and all the poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept of mathematical beauty." Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948), Scottish zoologist, classical scholar

15		"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

16		"We're not separate from the rest of the universe but are literally braided into it; we are a complete whole living in a greater complete whole."

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

18		"We experience resonance on a very personal level in our rapport with the people we know and meet… Each of us unconsciously broadcasts the energy of our inner life and receives that with which we are in tune."

19		"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."

20		"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

21		"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

22		"Each circle you see or create is a profound statement about the transcendental nature of the uni-verse."

23		"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

24		"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."

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