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

SHOW detailed search and navigation | Quotes | References | JoAnn

1		"The mathematical rules of the universe are visible to men in the form of beauty." John Mitchell (b. 1933), English geometer and philosopher

2		"Only by acknowledging both poles in the pair as inseparable can we overcome relative duality and get to their common source in the Monad. In our deepest Self we are beyond all polarity."

3		"The ancients were aware of nature's geometric language and purposefully employed it in their arts, crafts, architecture, philosophy, myth, natural science, religion, and structures of society from prehistoric times through the Renaissance. The world today needs scholars and researchers who give the ancients credit for their intelligence and understanding, to view their art and entire cultures in light of its mathematical symbolism."

4		"A circle [is] the traditional symbol of heaven, wholeness, and unity."

5		"Whence shall he have grief, how shall he be deluded who sees everywhere the Oneness?" Isha Upanishad

6		"A common theme in worldwide mythology is the human as microcosm, a miniature model of the whole universe…this view was long considered a key to the understanding of the Self. The ancient philosophers saw their inner lives arranged according to nature's own harmonies, for in nature, geometry, and their spiritual lives they discovered the same principles."

7		"Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound." William Shakespeare

8		"Human nature mirrors outer nature."

9		"God created the universe through the Breath of the Compassionate." Mohammed (ca. 570-632)

10		"Traditionally, the center is the most honorable place, known to the Greeks as 'the keep of Zeus.' Protector of hearths and boundaries (centers and circumferences) and the source of moral order, Zeus dispensed judgment from the center."

11		"We experience resonance on a very personal level in our rapport with the people we know and meet… Each of us unconsciously broadcasts the energy of our inner life and receives that with which we are in tune."

12		"It is stirring to realize that each of the physical structures of the universe is a repackaging of the others. We hold the proportions of the solar system in our hands, face, and whole body."

13		"Cognizance of harmony in nature and mathematics attunes us to harmony at our own core."

14		"The world is single and it came into being from the center outwards." Joannes Stobaeus (5th century), Greek anthologist

15		"Numbers, as archetypal structural constants of the collective unconscious, possess a dynamic, active aspect which is especially important to keep in mind. It is not what we can do with numbers but what they do to our consciousness that is essential." Marie-Louise vonFranz, Jungian psychologist and writer

16		"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."

17		"The simple beauty of a crystal is, in part, its strict mathematical order. Through the study of number and shape we begin to apprehend the cosmic order."

18		"Polar tension occurs in all natural and human affairs as any opposing relationship, contrast, difference. It is at the root of our pernicious notion of separateness from each other, from nature, and from our own inherent divinity. The paradox of the Dyad (polarity) is that while it appears to separate from unity, its opposite poles remember their source and attract each other in an attempt to merge and return to that state of unity."

19		"Looking at a circle is like looking into a mirror. We create and respond irresistibly to circles, cylinders, and spheres because we recognize ourselves in them. The message of the shape bypasses our conscious mental circuitry and speaks directly to the quiet intelligence of our deepest being. The circle is a reflection of the world's – and our own – deep perfection, unity, design excellence, wholenes, and divine nature."

20		"What nature creates has eternity in it." Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991), American author

21		"The central secret is to know that the various human passions and feelings and emotions in the human heart are not wrong in themselves; only they have to be carefully controlled and given a higher and higher direction, until they attain the very highest condition of excellence." Vivekananda (1863-1902), Indian spiritual teacher

22		"Oh, grant me my prayer, that I may never lose the touch of the one in the play of the many." Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Indian poet

23		"To know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind." Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher

24		"Numbers keep recurring not because we make them do so but because they are inherent in the proportions of nature that express the timeless mathematical archetypes."

25		"The One underlies the Many."