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		"The dreams of ancient and modern man are written in the same language as the myths whose authors lived in the dawn of history…symbolic language is the one foreign language that each of us must learn. Its understanding brings us in touch with one of the most significant sources of wisdom, that of the myth, and it brings us in touch with the deeper layers of our own personalities….Indeed, both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves." Erich Fromm, 'The Forgotten Language'

2		"If you seek for man in his dead body, you are seeking for him in vain…The form may be destroyed: but the spirit remains and is living, for it is the subjective life." Paracelsus (1493-1541), Swiss physician and alchemist, 'The Life of Phillupus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim'

3		"Look inward: thou art Buddha." H. P. Blavatsky, 'The Voice of the Silence'

4		"As long as any one injures another, though he should possess the greatest wealth, and all the acres of land which the earth contains, he is still poor." Porphyry (233-304), Greek scholar and Neoplatonic philosopher, 'De Abstinentia'

5		"Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans never doubted that we had souls drafted from the universal Divine intelligence." Cicero (106-43 bce), Roman statesman and philosopher, 'On Old Age'

6		"One earns a vision by living it, not merely thinking about it." Herbert Fingarette (b. 1921), American philosopher and psychologist, 'The Self in Transformation'

7		"Each religion has its own method of realisation whereby the ultimate reality, the final self, the integrating principle is reached." D. T. Suzuki, 'What Is Shin Buddhism?",

8		"We may adduce the transcendental hypothesis, that all life is properly intelligible, and not subject to the changes of time, and that it neither began in birth, nor will end in death….If we could see ourselves and other objects as they really are, we should see ourselves in a world of spiritual natures, our community with which neither began at our birth nor will end with the death of the body." Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German philosopher, 'Critique of Pure Reason', Part II: I, iii

9		"Let us face it: 'deep down' nobody in his right mind can visualize his own existence without assuming that he has always lived and will live hereafter; and the religious world-views of old endowed this psychological feeling with images and ideas which could be shared, transmitted, and ritualized." Erik H. Erikson (b. 1902), 'Gandhi's Truth'

10		"Deity and the cosmos may be likened to a circle or sphere whose circumference is nowhere – hence boundless – but those center is everywhere. And each monad is such a divine, immortal, preexistent center." Editors

11		"Heaven, Earth, and I were produced together, and all things and I are one." Chuang Tzu (c. 300 bc), Chinese philosopher, from 'The Texts of Taoism', James Legge, translator, Dover 1962

12		"Know of a truth that only the Time-shadows have perished, or are perishable; that the real Being of whatever was, and whatever is, and whatever will be, IS even now and forever." Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish essayist and historian

13		"For those who have found the still point of eternity, around which all, including themselves – revolves, everything is acceptable as it is; indeed, can even be experienced as glorious and wonderful." Joseph Campbell, 'Oriental Mythology'

14		"I am convinced that we live in eternity now." Gustaf Stromberg (1882-1962), Swedish-American astronomer and physicist, 'The Searchers'

15		"This day before dawn I ascended a hill and looked at the crowded heaven. And I said to my spirit, When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be filled and satisfied then? And my spirit said, No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond." Walt Whitman, 'Leaves of Grass'

16		"The principles of the successive phases of Spirit are themselves only steps in the development of one universal Spirit." G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher

17		"Philosophically viewed, the whirling wheel and its ever motionless center can be a potent symbol of the human struggle toward insight and harmony…..Only in the still center of the imperishable Self is true perspective apparently achieved."

18		"The ringing challenge of the Delphic Oracle has resounded through the centuries: MAN, KNOW THYSELF!"

19		"Attached to the Real, the man goes to the Real, through steadfastness in the one; so the larva, meditating on the bee, is transformed into the nature of the bee, enters into the being of the bee; so the seeker for union, meditating on the reality of the supreme Self, enters therein through steadfastness in the one." Sankaracharya, 'The Crest Jewel of Wisdom'

20		"The Soul is immortal and fearless. The Soul is the fearless Eternal." The Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad

21		"Within the soul is a spark of the Itongo, the Universal Spirit." Mankanyezi, Zulu Wise Man

22		"Our innermost being is more valuable than all titles and honors." Queen Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898),

23		"Learned Audience, the Wisdom of Enlightenment is inherent in every one of us." Hui Neng (6th patriarch of Zen, 6th century ad),

24		"Whether they are Syrian, Greek, Egyptian or Hindu, the writers of the sacred books seem to me as men who had all gazed upon the same august vision and reported of the same divinity." George W. Russell (1867-1935), Irish author, 'The Candle of Vision'

25		"So closely are all human ideals associated with futurity that, in the absence of the faith that man is an immortal being, it seems doubtful whether they could ever have come to birth. In the further depths of our being, we are secretly conscious of our share in the inexhaustible spring of eternity, so that we can always hope to find life in it again….This belief seems, indeed, to be in accordance with nature's own favorite way of thought, of which she so insistently reminds us, in her rhythms and recurrences, her cycles and revolving seasons." W. Macneile Dixon