Plotinus Quotes

Quotes about:

• Knowledge has three degrees--opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition.

  Plotinus

  Knowledge, Mean, Illumination

  92 Copy quote

• The soul that beholds beauty becomes beautiful.

  Plotinus

  Inspirational, Beautiful, Soul

  "DVD Review - Bill Moyers: The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith" by Sam McPherson, September 19, 2011.

  18 Copy quote

• Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe

  Plotinus

  Soul, Universe

  69 Copy quote

• You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason.

  Plotinus

  Faith, Wisdom, Infinite

  75 Copy quote

• The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.

  Plotinus

  Stars, Sky, Together

  109 Copy quote

• Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful as yet, do as the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful; 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.

  Plotinus

  Beautiful, Cutting, Finding Yourself

  92 Copy quote

• Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us.

  Plotinus

  Doe, Action, Determine

  Plotinus (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)”, p.31, Delphi Classics

  67 Copy quote

• Knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.

  Plotinus

  Beautiful, Ignorance, Knowledge

  75 Copy quote

• 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.

  Plotinus

  Eye, Use, Birthright

  Plotinus, Elmer O'Brien (1964). “The Essential Plotinus”, p.42, Hackett Publishing

  62 Copy quote

• Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.

  Plotinus

  Fear, Soul, Fear Nothing

  41 Copy quote

• I am striving to give back the Divine in myself to the Divine in the All.

  Plotinus

  Giving, Giving Back, Strive

  Plotinus (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)”, p.2645, Delphi Classics

  35 Copy quote

• Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.

  Plotinus

  Beast, Midway, Mankind

  92 Copy quote

• We must not run after it, but we must fit ourselves for the vision and then wait tranquilly for it, as the eye waits on the rising of the Sun which in its own time appears above the horizon and gives itself to our sight.

  Plotinus

  Patience, Running, Eye

  Plotinus (2005). “The Enneads”, p.153, Penguin UK

  81 Copy quote

• We are not separated from spirit, we are in it.

  Plotinus

  Spirit

  61 Copy quote

• In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view; the vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical.

  Plotinus

  Views, Vision, Contemplation

  56 Copy quote

• God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that He is so.

  Plotinus

  God, Ignorant, All Things

  Plotinus, Thomas Taylor, Synesius Cyrenensis (1817). “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”, p.492

  21 Copy quote

• Withdraw into yourself and look.

  Plotinus

  Looks, Introspection

  Plotinus, Elmer O'Brien (1964). “The Essential Plotinus”, p.42, Hackett Publishing

  48 Copy quote

• It is precisely because there is nothing within the One that all things are from it.

  Plotinus

  All Things

  Plotinus (1917). “The Ethical Treatises: Being the Treatises of the First Ennead with Porphyry's Life of Plotinus, and the Preller-Ritter Extracts Forming a Conspectus of the Plotinian System”

  53 Copy quote

• There is one and the same soul in many bodies.

  Plotinus

  Soul, Body

  Plotinus, Arthur Hilary Armstrong, Paul Henry, Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer (1984). “Plotinus: Enneads IV”, Loeb Classical Library

  26 Copy quote

• The Soul of each one of us is sent, that the universe may be complete.

  Plotinus

  Soul, May, Universe

  Plotinus (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)”, p.448, Delphi Classics

  15 Copy quote

• One principle must make the universe a single complex living creature, one from all.

  Plotinus

  Principles, Creatures, Complexes

  Plotinus (1966). “Plotinus”, Loeb Classical Library

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  Plotinus

  Cutting, Light, Perfect

  Plotinus (1952). “The Six Enneads”, p.47, Hayes Barton Press

  34 Copy quote

• 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.

  Plotinus

  Beautiful, Eye, Soul

  Plotinus (1952). “The Six Enneads”, p.48, Hayes Barton Press

  61 Copy quote

• All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.

  Plotinus

  Wise, Men, Purpose

  Plotinus, Arthur Hilary Armstrong (1962). “Plotinus: Selections from His Major Writings”

  20 Copy quote

• 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. If a man could but be turned about, he would see at once God and himself and the All.

  Plotinus

  Men, Unity, Inward

  Plotinus (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)”, p.676, Delphi Classics

  19 Copy quote

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