A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe Quotes

“These three tools of light, energy, and mass by which the Divine geometer constructs the cosmos and by which the symbolic geometer approximates archetypal patterns are also mirrored in us. What scientists call “light, energy, and mass” are the traditional “spirit, soul, and body” described by Plutarch as nous (divine intellect), psyche (soul), and soma (body).”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“When the lessons of symbolic or philosophical mathematics seen in nature, which were designed into religious architecture or art, are applied functionally (not just intellectually) to facilitate the growth and transformation of consciousness, then mathematics may rightly be called “sacred.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Anything anyone can point to in nature is composed of small patterns and is a part of larger ones.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Nature itself rests on an internal foundation of archetypal principles symbolized by numbers, shapes, and their arithmetic and geometric relationships.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Awareness is the ultimate sacred wonder.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“[We] cannot and should not expect to rediscover the full body of ancient wisdom by studying dusty monuments and myths full of idioms and subtle references understood only by those who lived at the time. The perennial wisdom requires each individual and age to discover it anew in external mathematics, expressing it in ways and symbols suitable for those times and cultures.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Theoretically, there is no end to the trail of squares cut out of a continually resurrecting golden rectangle, seducing the squares forever onward.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Spirals are deeply rooted in the architecture of the universe; they are found in every size and substance. We’re always intimate with spirals yet rarely notice them. Sometimes we miss them due to familiarity, as in water whirling down the tub’s drain and in the shape of our ears. Sometimes we miss them because of their obscurity, as in the spiral “staircase” of leaves whirling around a stem. Sometimes we miss them because of their size, or distance, hurricanes or galaxies. And sometimes we miss them because of their invisibility, as in the shape of the wind and waves of emotion.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Here are two equations mathematicians have found that also approach the ideal value of Φ. Don’t be scared or anxious about them. Don’t even try to solve these equations. Just look at them. Each is a picture, a mathematical mandala clothing the infinite as it zooms by. Notice how each is composed solely of unity interacting with itself, embedded Monads unfurling as far as we can see in a self-replicating rhythm, like mirrors facing each other whose reflecting image gets smaller and smaller.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“The Hebrew letters YHWH (English: “Jehovah”) when written vertically depict an upright person in four levels, image of the cosmos.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“The ancients personified their vision of the subtle forces of nature in myth. Where modern science observes the triad of light, energy, and mass as E=mc2, the ancients mythologized a mystic marriage and birth in three stages: a field or womb of light arises, it swirls as an energy pattern, and physical forms precipitate upon the pattern. The geometer replicates this cosmic configurating process with three tools.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“The opening compass represents the first manifestation of God’s light and Brahma’s voice, illuminating and vibrating the universe into existence, as expanding states of self-awareness, which we call “nature.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Our role as geometers is to discover the inherent proportion, balance, and harmony that exist in any situation.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“The ten numbers are a complete archetypal sourcebook. They are the original ten patents for designs found all through the universe.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Geometry has two great treasures: one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel. —Johannes Kepler”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Islamic tiling pattern of a mosque and structure of the boric acid molecule show how identical shapes interlock in defined, recurring patterns in both art and nature.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“With our habit of sensible literalism we have a difficult time believing that the ancient mythopoeic imagination could have been a valid tool for serious knowledge.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“The goal of life is living in agreement with nature. —Zeno of Elea (490–430 B.C., Greek philosopher)”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“The real mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, it is a reality to be experienced. —J. J. Van der Leeuw”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Wisdom should be cherished as a means of traveling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession. —Bias of Priene (c. 570 B.C., one of the Seven Sages of ancient Greece)”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Every language having a structure, by the very nature of language, reflects in its own structure that of the world as assumed by those who evolved the language. In other words, we read unconsciously into the world the structure of the language we use. —Alfred Korzybski”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“The opposite is beneficial; from things that differ comes the fairest attunement; all things are born through strife. —Heraclitus (c. 540–c. 480 B.C., Greek philosopher)”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Everything seeks unity. The goal of many religions and mythic ordeals is to return to a lost state of Divine Oneness. But we have no need to return to a state of oneness because unity is axiomatic and we already are integrated in it. Barely recognizing our situation, here and now we live in a whole and beautifully harmonious wonder world. Only a self-imposed illusion of separateness keeps us from recognizing our own center of awareness and identity with the One.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Plato did, however, give instructions on the procedure toward understanding the nature and function of the types. In the Republic he described the ascent of the mind through four different stages. It begins in Ignorance, when it does not even know that there is anything worth knowing. The next stage is Opinion, the stage in which TV chat-show participants are forever stuck. This is divided into two subcategories, Right Opinion and Wrong Opinion. Above that is the level of Reason. By education and study, particularly in certain mind-sharpening subjects, the candidate is prepared for entry into the fourth stage, which is called Intelligence (nous). One can be prepared for it but with no guarantee of success, for it is a level that one can only achieve on one’s own, the level of heightened or true understanding, which is the mental level of an initiate.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“All the pictures which science now draws of nature and which alone seem capable of according with observational fact are mathematical pictures…From the intrinsic evidence of his creation, the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician. —Sir James H. Jeans (1877–1946, English physicist, astronomer, and writer)”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“The lesson of the spiral is that every “thing” is not a noun but a process, a dynamic “energy event.” The world resembles a whirlpool of transformation with which we can cooperate for our benefit.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“He discovered its self-accumulating, self-reproducing nature and gave the spiral a motto (perhaps the only one associated with a geometric shape): Eadem mutato resurgo—Although changed, I arise again the same.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“What makes spirals so prevalent in cosmic design? They are the purest expression of moving energy. Wherever energy is left to move on its own it resolves into spirals. The universe moves and transforms in spirals, never straight lines.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“Ape Factor. Mountaineers quantify the extent of their reach by the term “ape factor,” the ratio of arm span to height. Since, on average, our height equals the distance of our outstretched arms, an ideal body fits within a square. Its diagonals cross at our genitals, indicating the square’s relationship to fertility, birth, and generation. If arm span and height are equal, the ape factor is unity. A higher ape factor means a greater reach, desirable for those who climb and hug the earth.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science

“In the classic symbolism of myth and religion, the number forty (= 4 × 10) marks a passing beyond (see chapter ten) a worldly or fourfold material phase. This symbol of passage lends significance to Noah’s rain of forty days and nights; it is also reflected in the life of Moses, whose 120 years encompassed three forty-year phases and who waited forty days on Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. The Israelites spent forty years wandering in the desert. Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, the forty days of Lent, and Ali Baba’s forty thieves each recall the transformation of earth and self, often through physical ordeal. At the fortieth day of human pregnancy, the embryo becomes a fetus.”
― Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science