THE GREAT IDEAS, A SYNTOPICON, VOL. 1
Mortimer J. Adler, editor
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"The successive phases of Spirit that animate the Nations…are themselves only steps in the development of the one Universal Spirit, which through them elevates and completes itself to a self-comprehending totality." Georg Hegel (1770-1831),
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"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."
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"The divine being is all being simultaneously." Thomas Aquinas
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"Nothing is future to God. Everything that has ever happened or ever will is simultaneously together in the eternal present of the divine vision."
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"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."
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"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."
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"The ancient philosophers, constrained as it were by the truth, when they asserted an infinite principle, asserted likewise that there was only one such principle." Thomas Aquinas
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"Charity, according to its very nature, causes peace; for love is a unitive force." Thomas Aquinas
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"Spinoza defines God as 'Being absolutely infinite, that is to say, substance consisting of infinite attributes, each one of which expresses eternal and infinite essence."
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"Man's nature as a social being tends to make him feel it one of his natural wants that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow-creatures."
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"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)
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"Whatever the soul possesses, to that she comes bearing life." Socrates, quoted in Plato's 'Phaedo'
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"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,"
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"Whatever exists...has some share in the effulgent beauty of the One."
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"Justice is esential to the very life and health of the soul."
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"Immortality is, in a way, enjoyed in this life, for it is a present participation in eternity through the mind's knowledge of God."
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"In the realm of Being, the trace of The One establishes reality: existence is a trace of The One." Plotinus
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"Only God, only an infinite being, can satisfy man's infinite craving for all the good there is."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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'
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"Love is all opposites – the only reality."
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"All things partake of The One in absolute dependence."
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"Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions." John Locke (1629-1695)
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"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.'"
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