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.
PLOTINUSBeing is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.
More Plotinus Quotes
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Intelligence inbound with the entire of reality, not fenced off, integral to that All. […] Then it was as if One voice sounded.
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There is one and the same soul in many bodies.
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Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.
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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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Knowledge has three degrees–opinion, science, illumination.
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In actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues.
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If a man could but be turned about, he would see at once God and himself and the All.
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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.
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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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It is precisely because there is nothing within the One that all things are from it.
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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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In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view.
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The Soul of each one of us is sent, that the universe may be complete.
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Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.
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The world is knowable, harmonious, and good.
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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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As 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.
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Why should I consent to the perpetuation of the image of this image?
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Withdraw into yourself and look.
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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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We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order.
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We must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing…a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use.
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We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order; 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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Knowing demands the organ fitted to the object.
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You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason.
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