You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason.
PLOTINUSBeing is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.
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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Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us.
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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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We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order.
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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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Knowledge has three degrees–opinion, science, illumination.
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The world is knowable, harmonious, and good.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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We must not run after it, but we must fit ourselves for the vision and then wait tranquilly for it.
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