Quotes about Multiplicity

By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.

Instead of either/or, I discovered a whole world of and.

Thus Dionysius says (Div. Nom. cap. ult.) that "there is no kind of multitude that is not in a way one. But what are many in their parts, are one in their whole; and what are many in accidents, are one in subject; and what are many in number, are one in species; and what are many in species, are one in genus; and what are many in processions, are one in principle." Reply to Objection 3: It does not follow that it is nugatory to say "being" is "one"; forasmuch as "one" adds an idea to "being.

I answer that, The truth of this question is quite clear if we consider the divine simplicity. For it was shown above (Q[3], A[3]) that the divine simplicity requires that in God essence is the same as "suppositum," which in intellectual substances is nothing else than person. But a difficulty seems to arise from the fact that while the divine persons are multiplied, the essence nevertheless retains its unity.

For nothing was simply one thing.

God is not "Being" but beyond being, because being necessarily includes multiplicity. Yet this "many", as Maximus explains along with Pseudo-Dionysius, is always such only because of unity.

It is the nature of love to work in a thousand different ways.

Every form has its merits. And I like to work in a lot of different forms.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of everything.

God must have loved the plain people: He made so many of them.

You're three or four different men but each of them out in the open. Like all Americans.

Love had a thousand shapes.