Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.
PLOTINUSIt is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.
More Plotinus Quotes
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The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition.
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Now we are become a dual thing, no longer that which we were at first, dormant, and in a sense no longer present.
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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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Life here with the things of the earth is a sinking, a defeat, a failing of the wing.
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There is one and the same soul in many bodies.
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We are not separated from spirit, we are in it.
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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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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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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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It is precisely because there is nothing within the One that all things are from it.
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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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Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe
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One principle must make the universe a single complex living creature, one from all.
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