Many / One

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Compiled by JoAnn Kite

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The Great Ideas, A Syntopicon, vol. 1
Mortimer J. Adler, editor

1 "Immortality is, in a way, enjoyed in this life, for it is a present participation in eternity through the mind's knowledge of God."

2 "God is the infinite and eternal substance of all finite existences, an absolute and unchanging ONE underlying the finite modes in which it variably manifests itself."

3 "Man dies in the flesh to be reborn in the spirit. Man, composite of soul and body, perishes as do all things which are subject to dissolution; but the soul itself, a simple spiritual substance, is immortal, living on after its union with the body is dissolved."

4 "Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions." John Locke (1629-1695)

5 "Love is everywhere in the universe – in all things which have their being from the bounty and generosity of God's creative love and which in return obey the law of love in seeking God or in whatever they do to magnify God's glory."

6 "Whatever the soul possesses, to that she comes bearing life." Socrates, quoted in Plato's 'Phaedo'

7 "Human kingdoms are established by divine providence." St. Augustine

8 "The good of nothing less than the whole collectively or of all distributively can be taken as the common or general good."

9 "In Aristotle's cosmology, the circular motions of the celestial spheres, and through them all other cycles of natural change, are sustained eternally by the prime mover, which moves all things by the attraction of its perfect being."

10 "In the realm of Being, the trace of The One establishes reality: existence is a trace of The One." Plotinus

11 "Whatever exists...has some share in the effulgent beauty of the One."

12 "From self-evident propositions, by necessary consequences, as incontestible as those in mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out, to any one that will apply himself with the same indifferency and attention to the one as he does to the other of these sciences." John Locke (1629-1695)

13 "All things partake of The One in absolute dependence."

14 "The ultimate measure of justice in all human institutions and acts, as well as in the characters of men, is not itself a man-made standard, but rather a natural principle of justice, holding for all men at all times everywhere."

15 "Providence connects each one with its proper order." Boethius, quoted by Thomas Aquinas

16 "Love is all opposites – the only reality."

17 "In the view of Nicolas of Cusa, the mystery of God's infinity is best expressed by affirming that in God all contradictions are somehow reconciled."

18 "Spirit is immortal; with it there is no past, no future, but an essential now. This necessarily implies that the present form of Spirit comprehends within it all earlier steps….The grades which Spirit seems to have left behind it, it still possesses in the depths of its present." Georg Hegel (1770-1831),

19 "The moral law is universally and equally binding on all persons….the moral law commands us to respect the dignity of the human person, ourselves and others alike,"

20 "The ancients did not doubt that men could choose and, through choice, exercise some control over the disposition of their lives. Tacitus, for example…claims that 'the wisest of the ancients leave us the capacity of choosing our life."

21 "A natural teleology seems to imply that every natural thing is governed by an indwelling form working toward a definite end, and that the whole of nature exhibits the working out of a divine plan or design."

22 "Charity, according to its very nature, causes peace; for love is a unitive force." Thomas Aquinas

23 "God…is intimately present to our minds, producing in them all that variety of ideas or sensations which continually affect us." George Berkeley (1685-1753), 'The Principles of Human Knowledge'

24 "As God is the supernatural efficient cause of all created things, so God is also the supernatural final cause – the end or ultimate good toward which all creatures tend." Baruch Spinoza

25 "The absolute good is, as in the 'Divine Comedy', the final cause or ultimate end of the motions of the universe. It is 'the Alpha and Omega', Dante says, 'of every scripture that Love reads to me.'"

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite