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 "If a spiritual principle is omnipresent at all times, then no object can ever be moved so that it either approaches closer to or retires farther from spirit; for spirit has its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere." Lectures on Ancient Philosophy (Manly P. Hall)

2 "The centre is that microcosmic point in which the macrocosm is concentrated." Ariadne's Clue, A Guide to the Symbols of Humankind (Anthony Stevens)

3 "The pair of opposites is always there until one can find the center. Then in the center one can move and then go freely." Jean Erdman, Joseph Campbell's wife The Hero's Journey (Phil Cousineau, editor)

4 "When I began drawing mandalas, I saw that everything, all the paths I had been following, all the steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point – namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation." Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Carl Jung (edited by Aniela Jaffe))

5 "As a magnet has its magnetic field, an area within which all its forces play, larger or smaller according to its strength, so has every man a field of influence within which play the forces he emits, and these forces work in curves that return to their forthsender, that re-enter the centre whence they emerged." The Ancient Wisdom (Annie Besant)

6 "All this, then, was the plan of the everlasting god for the god who was going to be. According to this plan he made the body of the world smooth and uniform, everywhere equidistant from its center, a body whole and complete, with complete bodies for its parts. And in the centre he set the soul and caused it to extend throughout the whole body, and he further wrapped the body round with soul on the outside. So he established one world alone." Plato, 'Timaeus' Collected Works (Carl Jung)

7 "The life of the Logos abiding in each form is its central, controlling, and directing energy." The Ancient Wisdom (Annie Besant)

8 "From what source will human individuals ultimately draw the desire to accept one another and draw one another towards joyful unity? There is only one conceivable source: a growing attraction to the centre of consciousness in which their fibres and their bundle must complete themselves by reuiniting." The Vision of the Past (Pierre Teilhard deChardin)

9 "The center of unity is not material nor visible. It is an internal principle which dwells in all its parts, and binds them altogether in one harmonious whole." A Dictionary of Freemasonry (Robert Macoy)

10 "The centre is the indivisible monad of the self, the unity and wholeness of the experiencing subject." C. G. Jung: Letters, 1951-1961 (Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffe, editors)

11 "Let the OM be heard right at the center of the group, proclaiming God is All." The Rays and The Initiations (Alice A. Bailey)

12 "However vast the divine milieu may be, it is in reality a centre. It therefore has the properties of a centre, and above all the absolute and final power to unite (and consequently to complete) all beings within its breast." The Divine Milieu (Pierre Teilhard deChardin)

13 "The center of a spiral labyrinth may be likened to the maw of a dragon/serpent/crocodile in which the spirit/soul is devoured. But the way back is through the center; thus to be devoured is to be reborn,…a labyrinth is a form of Recycling Center." Tarot Revelations (Joseph Campbell & Richard Roberts)

14 "Point: The point signifies unity, the Origin and the Centre. It also represents the principles of manifestation and emanation….There are two kinds of point to be considered: that which has no magnitude and is symbolic of creative virtue, and that which – as suggested by Ramon Lull in his 'Nova Geometria' – has the smallest conceivable or practicable magnitude and is a symbol of the principle of manifestation. Moses deLeon defined the nature of the original Point as follows: 'This degree is the sum total of all subsequent mirrors, that is, of all external aspects related to this one degree. They proceed therefrom because of the mystery of the point, which is in itself an occult degree emanating from the mystery of the pure and awe-inspiring ether.'" A Dictionary of Symbols (J. E. Cirlot)

15 "Leibniz held with Bruno that each monadic center – whether an atom, a man, or a sun – is a mirror and replica of the entire cosmos, as well as the moving power in evolution." Editors Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery (Cranston/Head, editors)

16 "To say that God is Infinite is to say that He may be apprehended and described in an infinity of ways. That Circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, may be approached from every angle with a certainty of being found." Mysticism (Evelyn Underhill)

17 "Stay at the centre of the circle and let all things take their course." Lao-Tzu Revelations: The Wisdom of the Ages (Paul Roland)

18 "The fire at the center of the tepee, pipe, or of sweat lodge represents Wakan-Tanka, the Great Spirit within the world. How close this comes to Meister Eckhart's teaching that a 'spark of the soul' burns within every creature and every human that will never be extinguished and that this spark of the soul is the divine presence within us all. All of creation shares in this holiness." The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (Matthew Fox)

19 "Though the principle of the center is One, the patterns, the swirls and eddies of form and process which are generated by and through the center are infinite; and though infinite in number, the centers are essentially one, for each is the same irreducible point, the primary syllable, the word, the Logos, through which all is uttered." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

20 "The soul, which is immortal, has an arithmetical, as the body has a geometrical, beginning. This beginning, as the reflection of the great universal Archaeus, is self-moving, and from the centre diffuses itself over the whole body of the microcosm." Isis Unveiled (Helena P. Blavatsky)

21 "The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us." As Above, So Below: Paths to Spiritual Renewal in Daily Life (Ronald S. Miller and the editors of New Age Journal)

22 "The psyche of humanity contains…the divine Monad at the center." Tarot Revelations (Joseph Campbell & Richard Roberts)

23 "Hindu doctrine declares that God resides in the centre, at that point where the radii of a wheel meet at its axis. In diagrams of the cosmos, the central space is always reserved for the Creator." A Dictionary of Symbols (J. E. Cirlot)

24 "The mandala embraces both directions, which is why it is the consummate archetype of East and West alike. As the 'alpha and omega', the center is a union of opposites – a reflection of the true higher Self." ." Michael Flanagin, Ph.D., 'The Mandala in Jungian Psychotherapy' Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing (Judith Cornell, Ph.D.)

25 "There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fulness." Robert Browning Mystics after Modernism (Rudolf Steiner)

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite