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		"God is in an absolute sense one." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'First Century on Theology'

2		"Love is the most comprehensive and the highest of all the divine blessings spoken of in the Holy Scriptures." St. Theodoros the Great Ascetic, 'A Century of Spiritual Texts'

3		"The disposition which makes us capable of receiving divine blessings depends on ourselves." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'Third Century of Various Texts'

4		"Our task is to reject any thought that secretly vilifies a fellow being." St. Thalassios the Libyan, 'Fourth Century'

5		"The Good that is beyond being…is one." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'First Century of Various Texts'

6		"Blessed is he who can love all…equally." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'First Century on Love'

7		"Like a good and loving physician, God heals with individual treatment each of those who are trying to make progress." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'Second Century on Love'

8		"Truly blessed is the man who seeks virtue and pursues it and inquires diligently into its nature, since it is through virtue that he approaches God and enters into spiritual communion with Him." St. John of Damaskos, 'On the Virtues and the Vices'

9		"Intellect (nous): the highest faculty in man, through which – provided he is purified – he knows God or the inner essences or principles of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception….it understands divine truth by means of immediate experience, intuition, or simple cognition. The intellect dwells in the depths of the soul; it constitutes the innermost aspect of the heart."

10		"If we are made, as we are, in the image of God (cf. Genesis 1:27), let us become the image both of ourselves and of God…let us all become the image of the one whole God." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'First Century of Various Texts'

11		"Corresponding to every divine gift, there is in us an appropriate and natural organ capable of receiving it – a kind of capacity, or intrinsic state or disposition." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'Third Century of Various Texts'

12		"Prayer is converse with God, contemplation of the invisible,…a stimulus towards the divine, the assurance of things longed for, 'making real the things for which we hope' (Hebrews 11:1)." St. Theodoros the Great Ascetic, 'A Century of Spiritual Texts'

13		"Love is distinguished by the beauty of recognizing the equal value of all." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'Second Century of Various Texts'

14		"God by nature is always one and alone, substantively and absolutely, containing in Himself all-inclusively the totality of substantive being." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'First Century on Theology'

15		"The centre of a circle is regarded as the indivisible source of all the radii extending from it;…pre-existing in God are all the inner essences of created things." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'Second Century on Theology'

16		"There is one Divinity, a Unity simple, beyond being, without parts and undivided." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'First Century of Various Texts'

17		"The person who listens to Christ fills himself with light; and if he imitates Christ, he reclaims himself." St. Thalassios the Libyan, 'Third Century'

18		"The sublime providence of the Creator preserves everything that is." St. Thalassios the Libyan, 'First Century'

19		"Love alone harmoniously joins all created things with God and with each other." St. Thalassios the Libyan, 'On Love, Self-control and Life in accordance with the Intellect'

20		"Man is said to have been created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Genesis 1:26). He is made in the image of God, since his being is in the image of God's being." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'Third Century on Love'

21		"God, who gave being to all that is, at the same time unites all things together in His providence." St. Thalassios the Libyan, 'First Century'

22		"The treasures of wisdom truly are within us." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'Second Century on Theology'

23		"It is God who gives prayer to him who prays and who teaches man spiritual knowledge." St. Theodoros, the Great Ascetic, 'A Century of Spiritual Texts'

24		"God made us so that we might become 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4) and sharers in His eternity, and so that we might come to be like Him (cf. 1 John 3:2)." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'First Century of Various Texts'

25		"There is never an end, as there is never a beginning, to the good which God does: just as the property of light is to illuminate, so the property of God is to do good." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'First Century on Theology'