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.
PLOTINUSBeing is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.
More Plotinus Quotes
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One principle must make the universe a single complex living creature, one from all.
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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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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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Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.
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The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky.
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Withdraw into yourself and look.
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The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at one with Him in the noble love of a daughter for a noble father.
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Become vision itself.
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Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe
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Knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.
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And this is the life of the Gods, and of Godlike men, a life without love of the world, a flight of the Alone to the Alone.
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The Soul of each one of us is sent, that the universe may be complete.
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Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful as yet, do as the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful.
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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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Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.
PLOTINUS