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		"Heraclitus used the word 'logos' to refer to the underlying organizational principle of the universe – the ultimate whole experience – through which 'all things are one'." Keith Critchlow, 'The Platonic Tradition'

2		"Our bodies and minds, their architecture, processes and energies, could not be other than those of the universe that we observe, image and experience. Body, Mind and Universe must be in a parallel, formative identity. From this point of view, 'Man know thyself' was the principle of ancient science, as it is also coming to be in ultra-modern science." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture'

3		"Cosmos is much more than just the universe. It includes the idea of beauty, order or goodness, and structural perfection which we might call truth. All of these are held together by the prior principle of unity, which, manifesting as Cosmos – one mass of Life and Consciousness as the 'Corpus Hermeticum' will say – becomes a teaching of the harmony, sympathy and kinship of all things." Christopher Bamford, Introduction

4		"That the Universe is a living being with soul and spirit is a traditional doctrine expressed more or less in all revelations." Keith Critchlow, 'Twelve Criteria for Sacred Architecture'

5		"Every event is connected to every other event." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture'

6		"In reality everything is a simultaneity of interconnected relationships." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture'

7		"The [Greek] Stoics used the Heraclitean concept of an all-pervasive universal principle, which they considered to be divine." Keith Critchlow, 'The Platonic Tradition'

8		"To societies rooted in the Sacred, that is, in the ideals by which the greatest majority of humankind live and have lived over the greatest majority of the life of the human family, the created order is sacred." Keith Critchlow, 'What Is Sacred in Architecture?",

9		"If one wants to know of the most elevating, inspired and 'energetic' revelations that have been expressed through the human vehicle, it is to the Scriptures of the world that one has to turn. They have moved millions of people through thousands of years and have left legacies of elevative energy in the form of the great sages, sagas, music, painting, objects and architecture, and not less the profoundly healthy agricultural and medical systems based on co-operation." Keith Critchlow, 'What Is Sacred in Architecture?"

10		"The cosmos is one, unique, and could not be otherwise, as it reflects the Oneness of its Cause." Keith Critchlow, 'The Platonic Tradition'

11		"Wisdom is one and unique – to know the intelligence by which all things are steered through all things." Heraclitus, Fragment 32

12		"There is a teleological message contained in the image of the spiral; for it moves in successively opposite directions towards the ultimate expression of both the infinitely expanded and the infinitely contracted. The spiral is constantly approaching these two incomprehensible aspects of the ultimate reality, and therefore symbolizes a universe moving toward the perfect singularity from which it arose." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture'

13		"You issue from God's attributes at first; return again back to those attributes with all speed!...You begin as a part of the sun, clouds, and stars, you rise to be breath, act, word, and thought!" Rumi, 'The Masnavi'

14		"Creating and using symbols…allows human individuals and populations to communicate over vast spans of time and space….giving the human mind the opportunity to flow backwards and forward in time through the retention or projection of symbols contained within its own memory and imagination." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture'

15		"It is now, all at once, one, continuous….Nor is it divisible more here and less there….but it is full of what is." Heraclitus, Fragment 8

16		"Every power in nature and in spirit must evolve an opposite as the sole means and condition of its manifestation: and all opposition is a tendency to reunion." Samuel Taylor Coleridge

17		"The human world, particularly as understood in the inspiring philosophy and ideals of a sacred tradition, is essentially about 'lifting up'. As all life draws up to the light, so is the human psyche attracted to the elevating principles which act as constant regenerators to the forms and beings of our world." Keith Critchlow, 'What Is Sacred in Architecture?"

18		"Mind has the possibility of seeing itself reflected in the forms and symbols to which it gives birth. Its words and numbers, forms and images, are metaphors describing itself, and so are our most powerful tools for penetrating into its actions and modes." Robert Lawlor, 'Ancient Temple Architecture'

19		"The visible form is a nucleus in a spectral nest of related fields which resonate and conduct the information which controls the self-organization and development of the form. Each formation or morphic unit results from the organizational capacity of the morphic field, and each form reciprocally contributes to the continuation (nourishment) of that field." Robert Lawlor, 'Pythagorean Number as Form, Color, and Light'

20		"A form and its morphic field are different octaves in a resonant continuum. Periodic resonance is the law of life and it is this which is causative in all formal organization, regulation and development. Rhythmostasis is the sustaining power of formal organization and we may consider form of all types, including DNA as wave-guide antennas, receiving and transducing information from fields having a resonant affinity." Robert Lawlor, 'Pythagorean Number as Form, Color, and Light'

21		"Both as a principle of unity and a model of the cosmos, the sphere represents the ultimate undivided, undifferentiated whole." Keith Chritchlow, 'Twelve Criteria for Sacred Architecture'

22		"The universe is of one piece – it is a 'one only': one humanity, one nature, one universe, one God."

23		"the whole world is the outward form of universal reason." Rumi, 'The Masnavi'

24		"The followers of Pythagoras and Empedocles, and most of the Italian philosophers, say that there is a certain community uniting us not only with each other and with the gods, but even with creation. There is in fact one breath pervading the whole cosmos like a soul and uniting us with them." Sextus Empiricus, 'Advanced Mathematics'

25		"The creature is in Brahma, and Brahma is in the creature; they are ever distinct, yet ever united. He Himself is the tree, the seed, and the germ. He Himself is the flower, the fruit and the shade. He Himself is the sun, the light, and the lighted. He Himself is Brahma, creature, and Maya. He Himself is the manifold form, the infinite space; He is the breath, the word, and the meaning." Kabir