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

HIDE detailed search and navigation | Quotes | References | JoAnn


From this author

From this reference

In this category
Search "Opposites" category only?
Show at most this many (found 157)

One | Circle | Center | Opposites | Archetypes | Good | Ethics | Living Wholeness | Random

Opposites
Click to randomize

1 "Hot cannot be derived from cold, nor high from low. An opposition either exists in its binary form or it does not exist at all, and a being without opposites is completely unthinkable, as it would be impossible to establish its existence." 'On the Nature of the Psyche', CW 8 Basic Writings of C G Jung (V S DeLasslo, editor)

2 "The operations of the two contraries produce harmony, like the centripetal and centrifugal forces, which are necessary to each other – mutually interdependent – in order that both should live." The Secret Doctrine (Helena P. Blavatsky)

3 "The all-containing Divine Essence…comprises all dichotomies. The Absolute becomes differentiated in polarized manifestations, and through these the vital tensions of the world-process are brought into existence and maintained." Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization (Heinrich Zimmer, edited by Joseph Campbell)

4 "The self is a union of opposites par excellence." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

5 "Becoming conscious reconciles the opposites." C. G. Jung: Letters, 1951-1961 (Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffe, editors)

6 "Both yin and yang have their common origin in an undivided One." The Secret of the Golden Flower (Richard Wilhelm, translator)

7 "The world as unity of opposites, from the formed towards the forming, is essentially a world from present to present; the moment of the eternal present which is the unity of opposites." Kitaro Nishida, 'Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness', East-West Press 1958 Spectrum of Consciousness (Ken Wilber)

8 "Creation and destruction are simultaneous. Degeneration carries renewal in its core….there is a level in Nature at which all extremes become reconciled and merged." Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On The Mechanics of Consciousness (Itzhak Bentov)

9 "God is beyond opposition; in him is a reconciliation of contraries." Richard McKeon, introduction to John Scotus Eriugena Selections From Medieval Philosophers (Richard McKeon, editor and translator)

10 "Once you have brought bondage to the dyad into subjection to the dignity and nature of the One, you will have subjected the whole of creation to God; for you will have brought into unity what was divided and will have reconciled all things." Nikitas Stithatos, 'On Spiritual Knowledge' The Philokalia, volume 4 (various authors, compiled by St. Nikodimos and St. Makarios)

11 "It is a fact that symbols, by their very nature, can so unite the opposites that these no longer diverge or clash, but mutually supplement one another and give meaningful shape to life." Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Carl Jung (edited by Aniela Jaffe))

12 "The illusion of duality is the trick of maya. 'Thou art that' (tat tvam asi) is the proper thought for the first step to wisdom." The Masks of God (Joseph Campbell)

13 "That which brings division ultimately creates union." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

14 "Everything in nature is cyclical and opposites are in balance. In the natural world you have opposites, like day and night, but they're not in opposition; they're complements to each other. They're part of one whole, and you have to have both. One isn't 'good' and the other 'evil'. The more that we can start to look at the world in this way again, the more integrated we can be." Starhawk, author and founding minister of the Covenant of the Goddess, 'Envisioning the Future' The Fabric of the Future (M. J. Ryan, editor)

15 "Nicholas de Cusa called God the 'coincidence of opposites'. Actually, this is today the way the astro-physicists view the universe – it curves back in on itself like a Mobius strip, and thus has no outside, and having no outside neither does it have an inside, or, one can say its inside is its outside: the coincidence of opposites, the universe as non-dual." Spectrum of Consciousness (Ken Wilber)

16 "In the empirical self, light and shadow form a paradoxical unity." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

17 "The Intellect (Intellectus) sees opposites unified." Modern Esoteric Spirituality (Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman, editors)

18 "In accordance with the principle of compensation which runs through the whole of nature, every psychic development, whether individual or collective, possesses an optimum which, when exceeded, produces an enantiodromia, that is, turns into its opposite." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

19 "Every psychic phenomenon is compensated by its opposite, in agreement with the proverb, 'There is no misfortune so great that no good may come of it.'" Collected Works (Carl Jung)

20 "We now know beyond doubt that large and widely scattered numbers of otherwise sane and sober people have had experiences of 'cosmic consciousness' in which the sense of life becomes perfectly clear. The antagonisms of good and evil, life and death, being and nothing, self and other are felt as the poles or undulations of a single, eternal and harmonious energy –exuding a sense of joy and love." Behold the Spirit, A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion (Alan Watts)

21 "Opposites are fundamentally of the one essence, two aspects of the one Vishnu." Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization (Heinrich Zimmer, edited by Joseph Campbell)

22 "In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order, in all caprice a fixed law, for everything that works is grounded on its opposite." 'Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious', CW 9, 1 Basic Writings of C G Jung (V S DeLasslo, editor)

23 "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." A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science (Michael S. Schneider)

24 "Two souls contend…In me and both sould strive for masterdom…Which from the other shall the other shall the scepter rend…The first soul is a lover, clasping close…to this world tentacles of corporal flame…The other seeks to rise with mighty throes…To those ancestral meadows, whence it came." Faust (Goethe)

25 "The poles open two paths, which both lead to ONE goal at the end." Wassily Kandinsky, painter Breaking the Mind Barrier (Todd Siler)

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite