Compare Similar Author Quotes in Slideshow Galleries

I’ve created slideshow galleries of similar quotes, where every comparative quote image from my research articles cane be viewed in one place. Most compare the words of Maurice Nicoll and Eckhart Tolle on spiritual topics; some also feature Barry Long. Viewed together, they show Tolle’s work bears many thematic and descriptive similarities to these earlier authors.

One of the main themes I’ve been exploring here is Maurice Nicoll’s work on “esoteric psychology” and the influence this may have had on our contemporary spiritual scene.

Maurice Nicoll, as readers here would know, was a physician, Jungian psychologist and author who went on to teach the Fourth Way esoteric system until his death in 1953. He was a prolific writer on its psychological teachings, focusing on this very intently, particularly the practice of self-observation.

I’ve been comparing his work to that of Eckhart Tolle, a bestselling writer and teacher consistently ranked as one the world’s most spiritually influential living people, and highlighted prominent parallels in their messages. I’ve found and discussed corresponding concepts, practices and phraseology in both authors’ work.

I point to the cumulative evidence of similarities between Nicoll and Tolle, documented in my research, to argue that that Nicoll’s influence on contemporary spirituality is more significant than many realise.

Nicoll may have learned the Fourth Way teaching from G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky, but his expositions often bear his own idiosyncratic hallmarks—like, for example, the incorporation of certain Jungian ideas, or the use of certain distinctive expressions or turns of phrase. I often draw attention to these characteristics, as I did recently when discussing the spiritual importance of “the light of consciousness” in Nicoll’s work.

While some of these correspondences require in-depth analysis and explanation to reveal—as when addressing weighty concepts like identification for instance—there are some similarities that seem readily apparent just by juxtaposing certain statements made by each author on a given topic.

In such cases, either the concept described closely corresponds, or, stylistically speaking, the terms, expressions or literary structure used to express the idea is what stands out—and in some its cases it may be both.

When I noticed such instances, I created quote images where the two passages could be seen side-by-side graphically, and included these in my articles. Most compare the words of Maurice Nicoll and Eckhart Tolle, but some feature the words of Barry Long—a little-known Australian teacher whose talks Tolle attended in London before his own teaching career began.

I originally created these quote graphics just to supplement my written analysis. However, I came to see that that these pictures can also tell their own story; it might not be the whole story, but it’s often enough to get the gist across.

That’s why I’ve decided to gather every comparative quote image featured in my research articles into slideshow galleries, where they can all be viewed in one place. Seen in sequence together, I think a picture is painted that’s bigger than the sum of its parts.

There are currently four main galleries, into which all quote graphics have been organised: “self-observation,” “spiritual psychology,” “negativity within” and “law of opposites.” These are all on the main quote comparisons page which can be accessed from the site’s top menu under “compare author quotes.”

While the four main categories are broad categories capturing all quote graphics, I’ve also created some sub-galleries for more specific concepts. These can be accessed via links found beneath the main slideshows.

I hope this new feature will help to illustrate, with more immediate, visual impact, some of the correspondences I’ve been analysing in my writing—or, at the very least, serve as an introduction to this.

One of the galleries can be browsed below. My intention is to update this collection every time more comparative quote graphics are created for the articles I write. So you will need to go to the main quote comparison pagee to view the complete up-to-date collection.

Quotes on Self-Observation

Use the forward and back arrows near the top corners of the images to cycle through them. Each set of quotes has a caption underneath with further information, including a link to the article it’s found in.

They describe self-observation as a process of directing attention inwards, to observe one’s thoughts, emotions and inner states in a detached way.