Life here with the things of the earth is a sinking, a defeat, a failing of the wing.
PLOTINUSOne principle must make the universe a single complex living creature, one from all.
More Plotinus Quotes
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Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.
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Become vision itself.
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All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.
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The vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical.
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Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.
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Never stop working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, until you see self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat.
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The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky.
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When we look outside of that on which we depend we ignore our unity; looking outward we see many faces; look inward and all is one head.
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We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order.
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Clearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as employing the body, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third entity, again, there are two possible modes: it might be either a blend or a distinct form due to the blending.
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Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?
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From the Soul using the body as an instrument, it does not follow that the Soul must share the body’s experiences: a man does not himself feel all the experiences of the tools with which he is working.
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Until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.
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Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue.
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If a man could but be turned about, he would see at once God and himself and the All.
PLOTINUS






