Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sun-like, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful.
PLOTINUSIn actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues.
More Plotinus Quotes
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Intelligence inbound with the entire of reality, not fenced off, integral to that All. […] Then it was as if One voice sounded.
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We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order; knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.
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God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that He is so.
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In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view.
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Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe
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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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A dogma recognized throughout antiquity… (that) the soul expiates its sins in the darkness of the infernal regions and… afterwards… passes into new bodies, there to undergo new trials.
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We must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing…a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use.
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As the eye waits on the rising of the Sun which in its own time appears above the horizon and gives itself to our sight.
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Withdraw into yourself and look.
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If someone with the right conduct tries to attain to something that lies outside of it, is his goal not the right conduct.
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Nature is but an image of wisdom, the last thing of the soul; nature being a thing which doth only do, but not know.
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Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us.
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The sculptor cuts away here, smoothes there, makes this line lighter, this other purer, until he or she has shown a beautiful face upon the statue.
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Why should I consent to the perpetuation of the image of this image?
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One principle must make the universe a single complex living creature, one from all.
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Knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.
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Before we had our becoming here, we existed There, men other than now; we were pure souls.
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Become vision itself.
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It is bad enough to be condemned to drag around this image in which nature has imprisoned me.
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It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.
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Wherever it lies, under earth or over earth, the body will always rot.
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There is one and the same soul in many bodies.
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We must not run after it, but we must fit ourselves for the vision and then wait tranquilly for it.
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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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Beauty is rather a light that plays over the symmetry of things than that symmetry itself.
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