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.
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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When we look outside of that on which we depend we ignore our unity; looking outward we see many faces; look inward and all is one head.
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The world is knowable, harmonious, and good.
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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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Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.
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It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.
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Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.
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In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view.
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You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason.
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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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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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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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Why should I consent to the perpetuation of the image of this image?
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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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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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Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too.
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