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Plotinus

Plotinus Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Plotinus Quotes

“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, 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.”

LightPerfectVirtueCuttingGoodnessPerfectionShiningCeaseLabourStatuesCrookedShrinesGodlikeSplendourOvercast
Book:The Six Enneads
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“Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?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.”

TwoSoulBodyMightFormDesirePleasureThirdsAffectionDuesSeatsEntityDistressAversionEmployingFear And Courage
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)
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“We may treat of the Soul as in the body - whether it be set above it or actually within it - since the association of the two constitutes the one thing called the living organism, the Animate.Now from this relation, 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.”

MenFeelsMayDoeTwoSoulBodyOne ThingShareToolsTreatsRelationInstrumentsAssociationOrganismsLiving Organisms
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)
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“The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at one with Him in the noble love of a daughter for a noble father; 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.”

HumansSoulFallFatherBirthDaughterNobleMortalsGod LoveSpheresCourtshipNature Love
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)
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“Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too, 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, in actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues.”

MindKindCharacterActionBeautifulCertainOrderBeautyVirtueHigherSightHearingIntellectPursuitAll KindsCombinationLiftsRealmsAddressesMelodyCadence
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)
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“God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that He is so.”

GodAll ThingsIgnorant
Book:Select works ¬of ¬Plotinus, ...: and extracts from the treatise of Synesius On Providence : Translated from the greek ; with an introduction containing the substance of Porphyry's life of Plotinus
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“Before we had our becoming here, we existed There, men other than now; we were pure souls. Intelligence inbound with the entire of reality, not fenced off, integral to that All. [...] Then it was as if One voice sounded. One word was uttered and from every side an ear attended and received and there was an effective hearing; now we are become a dual thing, no longer that which we were at first, dormant, and in a sense no longer present.”

IfsMenFirstsSoulRealitySidesVoiceBecomingPureEarsHearingOne WordDormantPure Soul
Author:Plotinus
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