Plotinus Quotes & Sayings

Beauty is rather a light that plays over the symmetry of things than that symmetry itself. — Plotinus

The soul that beholds beauty becomes beautiful. — Plotinus

Knowing demands the organ fitted to the object. — Plotinus

It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings. — Plotinus

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

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

The First, then, should be compared to light, the next [Spirit or Intellect] to the sun, and the third [soul] to the celestial body of the moon, which gets its light from the sun. (V-6-4) — Plotinus

Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being. 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. — Plotinus

This All is universal power, of infinite extent and infinite in potency, a god so
great that all his parts are infinite. Name any place, and he is already there. — Plotinus

God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that he is so. — Plotinus

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 ... — Plotinus

There is one and the same soul in many bodies. — Plotinus

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

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

Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe — Plotinus

To make the existence and coherent structure of this Universe depend upon automatic activity and upon chance is against all good sense. — Plotinus

Life is the flight of the alone to the alone. — Plotinus

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

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

If someone with the right conduct tries to attain to something that lies outside of it, is his goal not the right conduct. — Plotinus

Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts. — Plotinus

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

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. — Plotinus

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. — Plotinus

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. — Plotinus

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. — Plotinus

Withdraw into yourself and look. — Plotinus

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

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

Nature is but an image of wisdom, the last thing of the soul; nature being a thing which doth only do, but not know. — Plotinus

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

It is bad enough to be condemned to drag around this image in which nature has imprisoned me. Why should I consent to the perpetuation of the image of this image? — Plotinus

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

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

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

We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order ... — Plotinus

The world is knowable, harmonious, and good. — Plotinus

Those who believe that the world of being is governed by luck or chance and that it depends upon material causes are far removed from the divine and from the notion of the One. — Plotinus

The world is finite, harmonious, and good. — Plotinus

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. — Plotinus

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

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

We are not separated from spirit, we are in it. — Plotinus

Wherever it lies, under earth or over earth, the body will always rot. — Plotinus

Self-knowledge reveals to the soul that its natural motion is not, if uninterrupted, in a straight line, but circular, as around some inner object, about a center, the point to which it owes its origin. — Plotinus

Never stop working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, until you see self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat. — Plotinus

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