Plotinus Quotes

36 quotes in 444 categories

• 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…
• Knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.
• Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being.
• 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…
• 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…
• 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.
• 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…
• 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…
• I am striving to give back the Divine in myself to the Divine in the All.
• 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…
• The world is knowable, harmonious, and good.
• Withdraw into yourself and look.
• Life is the flight of the alone to the alone.
• 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…
• It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.
• Knowledge has three degrees--opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition.

Browse Plotinus Quotes by Category