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.
PLOTINUSBut 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.
PLOTINUSNature is but an image of wisdom, the last thing of the soul; nature being a thing which doth only do, but not know.
PLOTINUSWherever it lies, under earth or over earth, the body will always rot.
PLOTINUSA 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.
PLOTINUSThe world is knowable, harmonious, and good.
PLOTINUSBefore we had our becoming here, we existed There, men other than now; we were pure souls.
PLOTINUSIn this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view.
PLOTINUSThe vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical.
PLOTINUSAs in certain combinations so words and in all kinds of music; for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life.
PLOTINUSMankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.
PLOTINUSNever 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.
PLOTINUSBeauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too.
PLOTINUSWe are not separated from spirit, we are in it.
PLOTINUSThe 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.
PLOTINUSKnowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us.
PLOTINUSIt is bad enough to be condemned to drag around this image in which nature has imprisoned me.
PLOTINUS