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.
PLOTINUSAnd 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.
More Plotinus Quotes
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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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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 must not run after it, but we must fit ourselves for the vision and then wait tranquilly for it.
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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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Knowledge has three degrees–opinion, science, illumination.
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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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The world is knowable, harmonious, and good.
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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.
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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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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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Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?
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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.
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Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.
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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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You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason.
PLOTINUS






