| SPIRIT OF THE WORLD |
| MANY VOICES / ONE TRUTH |
| Gathered and organized and introduced by
JoAnn Kite
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| Take a few minutes to click through and explore this revealing masterpiece of visionary spiritual synopsis |
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THE GREAT THOUGHTS
George Seldes, compiler
From Abelard to Zola, from ancient Greece to contemporary America, the ideas that have shaped the history of the world.
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| 1 |
"I feel compelled to look for a first Cause." Charles Darwin (1809-1882), English biologist, letter to Rev. J. Fordyce, July 7, 1879
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| 2 |
"Francis Thompson, the English poet, once wrote that one could not pluck a flower without troubling a star. Intuitively he had sensed the enormous interlinked complexity of life." Loren Eiseley (1907-1977), American anthropologist, 'How Flowers Changed the World'
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| 3 |
"Free? Understand that well, it is the deep commandment, dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to be free." Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish historian
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| 4 |
"God is a verb, not a noun." R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), American architect, writer, 'No More Secondhand God'
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| 5 |
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918), Russian author, Nobel Prize 1970, 'The Gulap Archipelago'
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| 6 |
"He who loves according to the guidance of reason strives as much as possible to repay the hatred, anger, or contempt of others toward himself with love and generosity." Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher, 'Ethics'
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| 7 |
"All men know in their very earliest years that beside the good of their animal personality, there is another, a better, a good in life, which is not only independent of the gratification of the appetites of the animal personality, but on the contrary, the greater the renunciation of the welfare of the animal personality the greater the good becomes…This feeling…is known to all. This feeling is love." Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian author, 'On Life and Essays on Religion'
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| 8 |
"Morality is the observance of the rights of others." Dagobert D. Runes (1902-1982), American philosopher, 'Treasury of World Literature'
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| 9 |
"There is only one science, love; only one riches, love; only one policy, love….love is all the law, and the prophets." Anatole France (1844-1924), French author, 'Epigrams'
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| 10 |
"Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows like harmony in music; there is a dark inscrutable workmanship that reconciles discordant elements." William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English poet, 'The Prelude'
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| 11 |
"Use love to motivate you and obligate you to serve the human family." Jesse Jackson (b. 1941), American minister, political leader, address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984
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| 12 |
"Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself." Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher, 'Ethics'
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| 13 |
"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change, windows on the world, 'lighthouses' (as a poet said) 'erected in the sea of time.' They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print." 'Authors League Bulletin', November-December 1979
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| 14 |
"We must discover a new respect for what transcends us: for the universe, for the earth, for nature, for life, and for reality. Our respect for other people, for other nations, and for other cultures, can only grow from a humble respect for the cosmic order and from an awareness that we are a part of it, that we share in it and that nothing of what we do is lost, but rather becomes part of the eternal memory of Being." Vaclav Havel (b. 1936), Czech playwright, President of the Czech Republic, commencement address, Harvard University, June 8, 1995
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| 15 |
"United we stand, divided we fall." Aesop (620-560 bce), Greek author, 'The Four Oxen and the Lion'
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| 16 |
"A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love." Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, 'On Friendship'
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| 17 |
"Religion is the root of human existence." Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845), German poet, 'Lectures, 1807-1808'
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| 18 |
"No government can stand which is not founded on justice." Aristotle (384-322 bce), Greek philosopher, 'Politics', Bk. VII
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| 19 |
"To live without love I think is impossible, happily impossible for each one of us." Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Argentine author, 'Blindness'
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| 20 |
"All fear is a sign of want of faith." Mohandes Gandhi (1869-1948), Hindu national leader, 'Letters From Bapu'
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| 21 |
"For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." Henri Bergson (1859-1941), French philosopher, Nobel Prize winner, 1927, 'Creative Evolution'
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| 22 |
"From the intrinsic evidence of his creation the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician." Sir James Jeans (1877-1946), British scientist, 'The Mysterious Universe'
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| 23 |
"Doubt is an incentive to truth and patient inquiry leads the way." Hosea Ballou (1771-1852), American theologian
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| 24 |
"Nature is the Art of God." Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet, 'Monarchy'
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| 25 |
"I would say that if there is no love, NOTHING is possible. Man absolutely cannot live by himself." Erich Fromm (1900-1980), American psychologist, 'Look', May 5, 1964
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We are gathering together the primary insights of spirituality and bringing them together into one place.
This archive contains 11,754 quotes, taken from 635 references,
organized in terms of 39 primary categories. Quotes are randomized and appear in a different way at every click.
Explore the navigation options to review these insights.
We include
- All major spiritual and religious traditions, from all cultures, and all historical epochs
- Major psychologists, philosophers, writers, scholars and leading religious personalities
- Sources in classical religion as well as voices from new consciousness, esotericism and mysticism
- Choices are guided by the spirit of oneness, love, kindness, inclusion and community
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2,901,943
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