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		"To create meaning in our lives, we have to go back to basics….It's morality. It's doing the right thing. It's choosing the right way to be for the good of the whole." Terry Lynn Taylor Angels: The Mysterious Messengers (Rex Hauck, editor)

2		"Jesus replied,…Everyone has the command of his own tongue, to speak both good and bad, let him look to it." The Gospel of Nicodemus, ch. 2, v. 5 The Lost Books of The Bible and The Forgotten Books of Eden (various)

3		"Man's art offers the gift of music out of mere sound, of wisdom out of awareness, of love out of indifference. These are difficult transmutations. They are accomplished by the alchemy of only the purest motivation." Creative Vision for Art and for Life (Richard Guggenheimer)

4		"Consideration is the greatest of all virtues, for in consideration all virtues are born. Veneration for God, courtesy towards others, respect of those who deserve it, kindness to those who are weak and feeble, sympathy with those who need it, all these come from consideration." Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), Sufi master musician, 'The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan' The Quotable Spirit (Peter Lorie and Manuela D Mascetti, editors)

5		"If you want to know with immediate and tangible recognition what God is like, examine kindness in yourself and others. It is your own deepest inner nature." The Mystic Hours, A Daybook of Interspiritual Wisdom & Devotion (Wayne Teasdale)

6		"To strive for unity in diversity is a task we cannot evade." Mercy Amba Oduyoye, African theologian The Lion Christian Quotation Collection (Hannah Ward & Jennifer Wild, compilers)

7		"The exterior acts of virtue proceed from interior choice." Thomas Aquinas, In Ethics II, L. 5, p. 136 Sheer Joy, Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality (Matthew Fox)

8		"Moral goodness has its eternal value in itself." The Essential Steiner (Rudolf Steiner, edited by Robert A. McDermott)

9		"What then can we do practically to help great national affairs? This at least: that when in our presence unkind or sneering remarks are made about other nations, we can make a point of always putting forward considerations on the other side, and saying something kindly." The Inner Life (Charles W. Leadbeater)

10		"Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain: and regard your neighbor's loss as your own loss." T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien (Taoist) Basic Theosophy (Geoffrey Hodson)

11		"We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar….Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out." William James (1842-1910), 'The Principles of Psychology' Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th edition (John Bartlett)

12		"The 'Golden Rule' is, after all, found at the core of the teachings of every great religious tradition, in almost identical words." William Metzger, 'Toward a New Spiritual World Order?' The Quest (various)

13		"Peace… is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677), 'Theological-Political Treatise' Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th edition (John Bartlett)

14		"Man must renounce all wars and settle his differences by peaceful means. This means, of course, that there must be mutual trust and confidence that agreements made in the interest of peace will be kept. But this, in short, requires a real regard for moral and spiritual values such as the major religions of mankind have always stressed." The Nature and Truth of the Great Religions (August Karl Reischauer)

15		"Primal Virtue is deep and far. It leads all things back toward the great oneness." Lao Tzu Miraculous Living (Rabbi Shoni Labowitz)

16		"Virtue is a gift from God implanted in our nature." St. John of Damascus, 'Exposition of the Orthodox Faith' (8th century) The Book of Catholic Quotations (John Chapin, Editor)

17		"Our task is to reject any thought that secretly vilifies a fellow being." St. Thalassios the Libyan, 'Fourth Century' The Philokalia, volume 2 (various authors, compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain)

18		"Actions motived by love, service and unselfishness produce a growing freedom of self-expression." Basic Theosophy (Geoffrey Hodson)

19		"The Law of Right Human Relations and the Law of Group Endeavor are of the utmost importance. This is a time in which cooperation, companionship along the Way, and love between the sexes, races, nations, and all other groups of individuals will reveal itself as containing the highest living ideals of a spiritual life in the material world." Soul Centered Astrology, A Key to Your Expanding Self (Alan Oken)

20		"My own inner being actually exists in every living creature as truly and immediately as known to my consciousness only in myself. This realization, for which the standard formula in Sanskrit is 'tat tvam asi', is the ground of that compassion upon which all true, that is to say unselfish, virtue rests and whose expression is in every good deed." Arthur Schopenhauer, 'On The Foundation of Morality' The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, Metaphor as Myth and as Religion (Joseph Campbell)

21		"Politeness serves a purpose…civility and kindness are moral imperatives." Jane Austen Invisible Acts of Power: Personal Choices That Create Miracles (Caroline Myss)

22		"We all have a duty of care towards our fellow beings within the Divine Unity, especially those who are less well off than ourselves." The Essence of Sufism (John Baldock)

23		"Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy." Erich Fromm, 'The Art of Loving' Shadows of the Sacred: Seeing Through Spiritual Illusions (Frances Vaughan, Ph.D.)

24		"Morality..is a function of the human soul, as old as humanity itself. Morality is not imposed from outside; we have it in ourselves from the start." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

25		"A mathematical concept or a moral concept may lead as certainly toward a sense of beauty as may a strictly aesthetic one." Creative Vision for Art and for Life (Richard Guggenheimer)