Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?
PLOTINUSCut 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.
More Plotinus Quotes
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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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Wherever it lies, under earth or over earth, the body will always rot.
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One principle must make the universe a single complex living creature, one from all.
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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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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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Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe
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Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.
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Withdraw into yourself and look.
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Knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.
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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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But coming to human birth and lured by the courtships of this sphere, she takes up with another love, a mortal, leaves her father and falls.
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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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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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We are not separated from spirit, we are in it.
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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.
PLOTINUS