This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal
The division of mankind into races is for purposes of identification only. The Islamic form of association in prayer, besides its cognitive value, is further indicative of the aspiration to realize this essential unity of mankind as a fact in life by demolishing all barriers which stand between man and man.
Aspiration | Association | Life | Life | Man | Mankind | Unity | Aspiration | Association |
Moses de León, known in Hebrew as Moshe ben Shem-Tov NULL
Behold, I shall reveal to you a very deep mystery of sublime greatness. Man who is in this world is here only by the association of the three elements which are one. They are: the rational soul, the Vital soul and the sensitive soul. It is only by union of these three forces that man is made perfect. It is thanks to this mysterious unity manifested in him that he becomes the reflection of that which is above, that is: the real image of God.
Association | Man | Mystery | Reflection | Soul | Unity | World | Association |
Moshé Feldenkreis, fully Moshé Pinchas Feldenkrais
I believe that the unity of mind and body is an objective reality. They are not just parts somehow related to each other, but an inseparable whole while functioning. A brain without a body could not think.
Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal
The mystic state brings us into contact with the total passage of Reality in which all the diverse stimuli merge into one another and form a single unanalysable unity in which the ordinary distinction of subject and object does not exist.
Distinction | Object | Reality | Unity |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
Everything in this world changes; only God remains the same forever. If mankind will realize this truth, then we can avert disaster by coming together with faith in God and living in unity and compassion. Do not live divided. With compassion for each other, live in unity and truth, in the presence of God. Live according to justice and conscience, respecting the lives and bodies of all others as your own, and knowing the hunger and the suffering of others as your own. Have patience, contentment, trust in God, and live praising God at all times, and peace will be easy.
Compassion | Faith | God | Hunger | Justice | Knowing | Mankind | Peace | Suffering | Trust | Unity | Will | World | God |
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
Here and in the hereafter, we must embrace all those who with absolute faith accept Allah in their hearts. We must pray to Allah in a state of unity, peacefulness, and truth, and then give greetings of peace to each brother. Standing face to face, our eyes looking directly into our brother's eyes, our hands clasping his hands, and our hearts embracing his heart with love, we must say, "May the peace of God be upon you." This is the unity and beauty of Islam, the beauty that Muhammad (Sal.) brought to the people. Wherever we go, our hearts must be in that state. Our prayers must be one-pointed, directed toward the same place, toward Allah, the One who is truth. If we can recite the praises of Allah and the Prophet, then look each other in the eye, give peaceful greetings, and embrace each other — if we can achieve that oneness of the heart with all lives, then we will be true believers.
Absolute | Beauty | Faith | God | Heart | Oneness | Peace | Unity | Will | Beauty | God |
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
Our house is God's house. If our state is correct, our heart (qalb) is God's house, God's kingdom, God's justice, love, compassion, and unity. Before this state of beautiful peace and unity comes, we need a place in which to meet, unite, understand, think, and reflect every minute and second, establishing relationships of unity and peace. Instead of wasting time in the world, we can go to this place five or six times a day to do prayers and worship. We can gather at God's house, focus on God, think about God, pray to God, and remember God. It is for this purpose that we are building this place.
Day | Focus | Heart | Need | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Unity | Think |
The ecological principle of unity in diversity grades into a richly mediated social principle; hence my use of the term social ecology.
Hinduism – not only in philosophy and literature but also in art – has the capacity for immense conceptions, profound an subtle apprehensions, that can entice the imagination and stun the mind with their depth, range and boldness. The many masks of the many gods, their various appearances and incarnations, have been employed to suggest the infinitely possible variations of one supreme essence. In seeking to give expression to that almost inexpressible idea of a unity which admits also of polarities, a “union beyond the opposites,” Hinduism created such arresting icons as the divine two-in-one embrace of Shiva and Shakti; or Shiva alone, half male, half female, or the two-sided figure of Hari-Hara, an expression of the seemingly “opposite” creative-destructive forces of Vishnu and Shiva embodied in one being.
Art | Capacity | Imagination | Literature | Mind | Philosophy | Unity | Art |
I myself consider that gravity is merely a certain natural inclination with which parts are imbued by the architect of all things for gathering themselves together into a unity and completeness by assembling into the form of a globe. It is easy to believe that the Sun, Moon and other luminaries among the wandering stars have this tendency also, so that by its agency they retain the rounded shape in which they reveal themselves, but nevertheless go round their orbits in various ways. If then the Earth also performs other motions, as for example the one about the centre, they must necessarily be like those which are similarly apparent in many external bodies in which we find an annual orbit.
Earth | Example | Inclination | Unity |
Nicholas of Cusa, also Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus NULL
That the universe is triune; and that there is nothing that is not a unity of potentiality, actuality and connecting motion; that no one of these can subsist absolutely without the other; and that all these are in all [things] in different degrees, so different that in the universe no two [things]... can be completely equal to each other in everything. Accordingly, if we consider the diverse motions of the [celestial] orbs, [we find that] it is impossible for the machine of the world to have any fixed and motionless center; be it this sensible earth, or the air, or fire or anything else. For there can be found no absolute minimum in motion, that is, no fixed center, because the minimum must necessarily coincide with the maximum]
Nicholas of Cusa, also Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus NULL
In God, absolute unity is absolute multiplicity, absolute identity is absolute diversity; absolute actuality is absolute potentiality.
Pablo Neruda, pen name for Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
This means that we have barely disembarked into life, that we’ve only just now been born, let’s not fill our mouths with so many uncertain names, with so many sad labels, with so many pompous letters, with so much yours and mine, with so much signing of papers. I intend to confuse things, to unite them, make them new-born intermingle them, undress them, until the light of the world has the unity of the ocean, a generous wholeness, a fragrance alive and crackling.
The mysterious manner in which this growing sense of unity commingles with a sense of utter goodness is worth noting. It arises by no effort of mine; rather does it come to me out of I know not where. Harmony appears gradually and flows through my whole being like music. An infinite tenderness takes possession of me, smoothing away the harsh cynicism which a reiterated experience of human ingratitude and human treachery has driven deeply into my temperament. I feel the fundamental benignity of Nature despite the apparent manifestation of ferocity. Like the sounds of every instrument in an orchestra that is in tune, all things and all people seem to drop into the sweet relationship that subsists within the Great Mother's own heart.
Cynicism | Effort | Experience | Harmony | Ingratitude | Nature | People | Relationship | Sense | Tenderness | Treachery | Unity | Worth |
Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
The ecumenical movement... is able to heal divisions which have become historically obsolete, to replace confessional fanaticism by inter-confessional cooperation, to conquer denominational provincialism, and to produce a new vision of the unity of all churches in their foundation.
Fanaticism | Unity | Vision |
The phrase ‘Sense of the Earth should be understood to mean the passionate concern for our common destiny which draws the thinking part of life ever further onward. In principle there is no feeling which has a firm foundation in nature, or greater power. But in fact there is also no feeling which awakens so belatedly, since it can become explicit only when our consciousness has expanded beyond the broadening, but still far too restricted, circles of family, country and race, and has finally discovered that the only truly natural and real human Unity is the Spirit of Earth.
Consciousness | Destiny | Earth | Life | Life | Spirit | Thinking | Unity |